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While the media go on and on about how Paul Ryan's budget is so serious and courageous that the President "must respond" to it (see the clip above where Fox's Stuart Varney employs the 'crisis' budget strategy), a truly progressive proposal has been released.

Unlike Ryan's proposal, which takes us all the way through 2040 before the deficit is eliminated, this budget puts us on solid footing by 2021, with a fully balanced budget by 2014. Here are some specifics:

The CPC proposal (PDF)

• Eliminates the deficits and creates a surplus by 2021
• Puts America back to work with a “Make it in America” jobs program
• Protects the social safety net
• Ends the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Is FAIR (Fixing America’s Inequality Responsibly)

What the proposal accomplishes:

• Primary budget balance by 2014.
• Budget surplus by 2021.
• Reduces public debt as a share of GDP to 64.4% by 2021, down 16.9 percentage points from
a baseline fully adjusted for both the doc fix and the AMT patch.
• Reduces deficits by $5.7 trillion over 2012-21
• Both outlays and revenue equal 22.3% of GDP by 2021

Real courage involves raising taxes and explaining that we can't pay for wars without a cost attached. Real courage involves protecting our most vulnerable and asking those with much to give a fair share.

This budget is a courageous budget. Not Ryan's. Yet, there hasn't been so much as a peep from the mainstream media about this alternatives. Gosh, I wonder why not.

Tiger Beatdown is leading the charge against State Rep Bobby Franklin of Georgia, the guy who thinks every pregnancy miscarriage needs to be investigated as a potential abortion. (h/t Echidne)

MN Progressive Project: Those that forget the lessons of history, tend to vote GOP

Balloon Juice: The Comedic Stylings of Pravda DC.

Welcome back to the blogosphere, Amygdala.

Send tips to mbru AT crooksandliars DOT com.

[h/t Geronimo]

Many of you who read my posts here won't believe this, but I agree with about 98% of this rant by Cenk Uygur, because he takes hard aim at the money in politics. Hard aim. He's right -- the key is to get the money out of politics.

I have lots of takeaways from last night's results, but one of the biggest ones is the money issue. The right has spent years building an infrastructure under their party, one that paid off handsomely last night. Yes, there was anger at Democrats and Obama. All of that is true. But make no mistake, it was fueled with combustible parts bought and paid for by every company on the Dow Jones Industrial Index and their hedge fund minions.

Lest you doubt, read this article from Politico, where they confirm what I wrote (and have continued to write) about last year: Campaign funding was coordinated between groups with Carl Forti at the helm.

Republican groups had never coordinated like this before, participants said, and backed by millions in corporate cash and contributions by secret donors, they were able to wield outsized influence on the results Tuesday night. The joint efforts were designed to spread the damage to as many of the majority Democrats as possible, without wasting money by doubling-up in races where others were already playing.

I call them Swift Boat Networks, because they're coordinated and funded by the same idiots who brought the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry.

Continue reading »

PERRspectives: Top 15 Moments from the Darrell Issa Hall of Shame

The Grey Matter: Rep. Weiner - and Olbermann - get it wrong?

Scholars and Rogues: I Don't Know, Man: A Tribute to Harvey Pekar

Open Left: WaPo temporarily upset at GOP deficit chicken-hawks

Progressive Blog Digest: All roundup, all the time

HOLY CRAP: Read this..."Pro-Family" means anti-families...Whole lotta Crazy goin' on...Lewd Navy videos and the National Day of Prayer...Cross clarification...Dumbass Quote of the Day...Einstein's God...Pat Robertson shocker...Constitutional faith...Conspicuous Devotion...Nutty...Rev. Eddie Long ...Religious philosopher calls it quits...

If my count is right, a coalition of House members aligned with the Tea Party and Progressive caucuses could cause any bill sent to the House from the Senate to fail. Michele Bachmann came out with a statement yesterday afternoon signalling probable opposition to any deal that ties unemployment extensions to tax cut extensions.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), the chairwoman of the House Tea Party Caucus, said Republicans could balk at voting to extend all the tax cuts for two years if it's tied to a long-term extension of jobless benefits.

"I don't know that Republicans would necessarily go along with that vote. That would be a very hard vote to take," Bachmann said on conservative talker Sean Hannity's radio show on Monday.

Assuming Bachmann has the ability to hold the caucus together, that's 52 House members. The progressive caucus has 83 members. If both joined in opposition, that would leave any bill sent from the Senate short 8 votes in the House.

That conclusion assumes such a bill ever leaves the Senate, of course. It's possible it won't, depending on how much power Jim DeMint wields. If DeMint, Inhofe, Barasso, Coburn, Bunning, Voinovich, Sanders and Feingold can put together 41 opposing votes between the ultra conservatives and the ultra progressives, it could get stuck there, as well.

Ah, we live in interesting times. Those tax cuts may still expire December 31st, and if they do it will be because a coalition of natural enemies joined against a compromise coming from the center.

This debate has been a test of everyone's resolve. There are still lots of plays left before the clock runs out. Stay tuned.

Scarabus: Republican Secrets Revealed!

Dissident Voice: Johnny Got His Pills (and so do we)

Corrente: I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free

They gave us a republic: Nightowl Newswrap

Angry Bear: Why aren't the 'law and order' types excited

Reverend Manny and the Twilight Empire: Secular Sunday Sermon: Evolutionary Peacefare. or a New Populist Progressive Agenda

Meet Alan Simpson. He wants to gut Social Security. And he's in charge of the future of Social Security.
How's that? President Obama appointed him to lead a key Social Security commission. Why? I have no clue.

He's like that crazy uncle you see once a year at Thanksgiving, except he has his hands on Social Security.

Karoli mentioned earlier Simpson's foul-mouthed tirade against a woman who had the temerity to challenge his attacks on Social Security in a Huffington Post blog post. The thin-skinned Simpson ranted:

"I've made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree. You know 'em too...We’ve reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million tits! Call when you get honest work!"

And this isn't the first tirade against someone who publicly criticized him and the commission.

That's why we at the Progressive Campaign Change Committee are launching a new site: StuffThatSimpsonSays.com to expose the out-of-control Simpson and the commision he co-chair's attempts to gut Social Security. Visit the site and see if you can tell a real Alan Simpson quote from a fake one and share it with your friends.

This would be funnier, if what the commission of unaccountable millionaires is working on wasn't so serious.

Congress will be voting on whatever this commission recommends. They need to understand the commission is being led by Alan Simpson, a guy who's so unhinged that you literally can't tell his real utterances from fake ones, they're that crazy.

Who else is on the commission? A bunch of millionaires... multimillionaire defense contractor (David Cote), a corporate CEO (Ann M. Fudge), and only one economist (Alice Rivlin) who's claim to fame is advocating for $47 billion in cuts to Social Security. You'll never guess where the executive director behind the commission also works: Bruce Reed, the CEO of the corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council.

And on top of that the committee meets in secret.

Alan Simpson - has a) no idea what he's talking about when it comes to Social Security and b) is incredibly offensive to just about everyone he talks to.

Check out StuffAlanSimpsonSays.com. Some of the actual things he said are just mind-blowing.

Enjoy and then share it with your friends so everyone gets the message we need to save Social Security, not hand it over to people like Alan Simpson.

Click here to tweet about the site or here to share it on Facebook and help get the word out!

P.S. If you like Simpson have a potty mouth, http://ShitAlanSimpsonSays.com also works.

Checks and Balances and the "F-Word"

via SeeingtheForest

Is there enough going on to make you nervous yet? The Vice President of the United States was the keynote speaker at a conference where other speakers called for "a new McCarthyism" to bring "terror" to intellectuals, saying "let's oppress them [liberals]," and "the entire Harvard faculty" are "traitors." A Congressman said, "America's Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd," ? Then he said, "We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq."

Meanwhile, right-wing commentators talk about killing American journalists, their premier blogs talk about former president Carter as being on the side of the enemy and leftists have "seamlessly taken up the cause of Islamic fascism". I have provided only afew examples.

When you hear threatening talk like this,in thecompany of the country's leadership, you know that whatever comesnext isn't going to be pleasant. Things do not appear to be heading in agood direction at all. If you have been following this in the blogs, youknow that more and more people are becomming concerned that the Right'srhetoric is growing ever more violent and totalitarian. Serious peoplehave started referring tothe"f-word." (See alsohere,here,here,here and manyother places.)

Oliver Williswrites,

You cannot deal with that sort of ideology in any sort ofaccomodationist manner. Liberals need to understand this, from Democraticsenators in Washington who still ? still ? refuse to vote theirconscience out of some sense of loyalty to a long-dead notion of civilityin Washington, to progressive pundits who actually believe that theirright-wing counterparts in the nation's media are actually there for agive-and-take rather than a chance to paint everyone to the left of JoeLieberman as a terrorist sympathizer. . I have provided only a few examples.

When you hear threatening talk like this, in the company of the country's leadership, you know that whatever comes next isn't going to be pleasant. Things do not appear to be heading in a good direction at all. If you have been following this in the blogs, you know that more and more people are becomming concerned that the Right's rhetoric is growing ever more violent and totalitarian. Serious people have started referring to the "f-word." (See also here, here, here, here and many other places.) read on

continuing inability of the U.S. military to understand the nature of the Iraqi insurgency, as reported in a New Yorker article, points to "one extraordinary but glaringly simple fact," writes War In Context's Paul Woodward, "America has virtually no friends in Iraq."

DC's Inside Scoop finds that as of today the White House "continues to maintain formal ties" with cash-for-coverage pundit Armstrong Williams. Plus: 'Open Wide and Eat Your Propaganda' and 'No Pundit Left Behind.'

Seeing the Forest's Dave Johnson describes a "conventional wisdom" machine set up by the Right, that in addition to working through conservative media outlets, attempts to influence more mainstream opinion leaders to "reject 'marginalized' information sources," including "Progressive online news sources or blogs." Plus: 'They can dish it out, but...'

Dan Rather retires and the religious right takes its shots!

There can be many things said about Dan Rather, but this one was the most ridiculous we heard all day.

Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition appeared on "Hardball" with Marty Kaplan of the USC Annenberg School of Communications and took her shots at Dan.

Video

Andrea: "I don't think he likes Americans!"

Matthews: "Dan Rather doesn't like Americans?"

Andrea: 'I don't think so. I think he's a grumpy old guy."

Marty: "Andrea, you just made my point about the right wing as well as I could ever possibly make it."

Here are some of the 'values" of TVC:

"Right To Life We also believe the government has the power to take the lives of those who murder others ...

Pornography: Pornography is a progressive addiction that ruins the conscience of the person. Frequently, this person acts out his sexual fantasies by molesting children, raping girls, and committing other sexual crimes—including murder.

Discrimination And Tolerance: We are not tolerant of behaviors that destroy individuals, families, and our culture. Individuals may be free to pursue such behaviors as sodomy, but we will not and cannot tolerate these behaviors. They frequently lead to death.

Love And Hate: The Bible teaches us that we are to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us.