This last week we've seen how Washington's elites are able to suppress popular opinion, work against the public interest, and wrap it all up with a bow so that it looks like "democracy in action." It's not. What we're seeing isn't democracy, and it isn't a free press either. It's merely another cynical ploy to rob Americans of government programs they both need and want.

The latest assault is on Medicare. The "Ryan/Wyden plan" is a perfect case study in the cynical workings of an antidemocratic machine - a machine whose cogs are lazy journalists, whose gears are selfish politicians, and whose levers are pulled by the wealthy and powerful.

I held my fire on this for a few days, to see if more details would emerge on the proposal from Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Paul Ryan, who were initially (and deliberately vague) on its specifics. That turned it into Rorschach test for observers, and where the Washington Post sees a butterfly I usually see a vampire bat.

But Malcolm Gladwell would be pleased: It turns out that the first "blink" impression of Ryan/Wyden is the right one. It's a Medicare-killing publicity stunt that undermines the financial security of the 99 percent. And if you happen to be reading this in the Nation's Capital, please note: The "lefty" position on Medicare is supported by most Republicans.

Let's not kid ourselves. Unless we act quickly and aggressively, the Machine will succeed in killing Medicare.

The Program

We've seen this software before. It's been run against Social Security, jobs, and other government services that are both popular and effective. Here's how it works:

1. Concept: An intellectually thin but highly-funded network of corporate-funded and billionaire-backed "think" tanks draft a proposal that would eviscerate a popular government program.
2. Rollout: Congressional Republicans act in lockstep to implement the think tank's policy by gutting something that's typically supported in overwhelming numbers by Democrats and independents - and which is often backed most registered Republican voters, too.
3. Blowback: The backlash from aggrieved citizens comes from all across the political spectrum, but is spun by compliant media figures as a reflexive hostility to "new ideas" from "ideologues" and "extremists" on the left.
4. Sellout: A cynical, self-serving Democrat sees an opportunity to curry favor with billionaires, corporations, and media outlets by endorsing the radical moves the Republicans have proposed.
5. Spin: The media uses that Democrat's endorsement as proof that the corporate position is actually that of "responsible" and "moderate" politicians in both parties.

The software has a political side effect, too: The distinction between Republicans and Democrats is blurred a little more, depriving Democrats of a winnable election issue.

Think of these five steps as a computer program you can run in almost any situation. The only variables are the program that is to be killed, the Democrat that'll do the dirty work, and which media outlet will deliver the machine's message this time. Plug in those three items and the program pretty much runs itself - or, as they used to say in the tech world, it "executes."

The Execution

This time around the government program is Medicare, the Democratic hack who's willing to undermine it for selfish reasons is Ron Wyden, and the media outlet is (who else?) the Washington Post. Here's how the five steps played out this time around:

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Interesting, because a few months ago, I commented in a Post piece about long-term unemployment and they contacted me to ask if I would write about my experience. "You mean, for free?" I said, ever tactful. "Well, no, we really don't have the money," the guy said. (He said he was an intern.) I told him I wasn't interested in working on the Graham family's content farm, but "thanks for asking." So this doesn't surprise me:

At least thirteen people have departed the [Washington] Post under “cake-less” circumstances (i.e. quietly) in the past year, writes Guild unit co-chair Fredrick Kunkle.

The script goes like this: an employee is summoned to a meeting where she hears that “the bar has been raised.” She is told her work does not meet this supposed new standard. She is handed an envelope with a buyout offer and given a deadline to surrender her job or face disciplinary action because of her allegedly poor performance. She is reminded that disciplinary action progresses from warnings to suspensions and termination.

Never mind that the people targeted so far have included veteran journalists with years of distinguished service. Or that talk of a “raised bar” comes as the Post relies more than ever on interns, bloggers, freelancers, readers or comically inexperienced content creators to fill pages.

Kunkle points out that half the thirteen who have left so far this year have been African-Americans or Latinos, but that the reason this is happening is a lack of money. The Post lost $6.2 million in its most recent quarter.

The original Guild piece adds:

Or that some allegations of poor performance – as documented by the new, pseudoscientific evaluation system and its across-the-board top score of “3” – have included highly subjective and weaselly criticisms such as inserting too many pop culture references in stories. (We are not making this up.) Other reasons worthy of disciplinary action? Not having enough sources. Not writing more “impact” stories. Not landing on A1 often enough. One staff writer was given a 30-day production quota as follows: at least one deeply textured A1 story, at least one news feature, profile or takeout worthy of the Metro front or A1, at least three dailies a week and at least three blog posts per week. No mention of a Twitter quota. Yet.

No mention of too many anonymous sources or too many self-serving leaks, of course. After all, their paper would be almost empty!

The Washington Post ran a startling story on their front page yesterday that would scare the crap out of most people -- if you didn't already understand how Social Security actually works, and that the Village elites will say just about anything to destroy it under the guise of "saving" it. Rich Eskow did a great job pulling it apart in this scathing HuffPost piece (you should go read it all):

If we had the space we'd deconstruct the entire piece. Instead we'll use a selected sample, beginning with the first line:

" Last year, as a debate over the runaway national debt gathered steam in Washington, Social Security passed a treacherous milestone. It went "cash negative."

Holy cow, that's a lot of deception in one sentence. First, the sentence conflates the national debt with Social Security. But Social Security is expressly forbidden by law from contributing to the debt! It must be entirely self-sustaining. So why connect the two in one sentence?

And that "treacherous milestone" isn't not treacherous at all. The plan's huge surplus, currently $2.6 trillion, was amassed because planners know that baby boomers would retire someday. That supposedly "treacherous" switch to "cash negative" has been anticipated for decades.

"Now, Social Security is sucking money out of the Treasury. This year, it will add a projected $46 billion to the nation's budget problems, according to projections by system trustees."

No. Social Security is entirely self-funded. This is a falsehood. And note the use of the word "sucking."

"Replacing cash lost to a one-year payroll tax holiday will require another $105 billion."

The President and Congress agreed to use the payroll taxes that fund Social Security as the mechanism for a tax break. That was a bad idea, in my opinion, precisely because it opened the program up to this kind of deception. But it's misleading at best to complain that this is adding to the nation's budget woes.

"Lawmakers in both parties are ducking the issue, wary of agitating older voters and their advocates in Washington, who have long targeted politicians who try to tamper with federal retirement benefits."

The word "ducking" is straight out of the Pete Peterson playbook. If you're not willing to back unnecessary cuts to Social Security to please billionaire political patrons like Peterson, you're somehow a cowardly politician.

Another Peterson trick is to ignore disabled recipients of Social Security and focus on the elderly, painting them as demanding, selfish, and cruel for expecting the benefits they'd paid for all their working lives. (Remember Alan Simpson's "greedy geezers" remark?) In Montgomery's case, these aggressive oldsters are "agitated" and have a practice of "targeting politicians" who cross them.

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Last week, Chris Matthews got all verklempt over his perception that President Obama is a loner who really just doesn't care much for people, after reading Scott Wilson's Washington Post article where he engaged in some pretty stupid hand-wringing. This followed some of the more ridiculous speculation I've seen in the Villager press like John Cook's speculative article that our President is clinically depressed.

The argument seems to go like this: President Obama isn't listening to anyone, not the Villagers Who Are Very Serious And Know Everything, nor his cadre of advisers who have thus far steered him in some pretty awful directions. Is it coincidence that the Very Serious Villagers are suddenly concerned about the President's mental health about the same time that he adopts a more populist (and popular) approach to this wretched economy? Get a load of the collective handwringing:

MATTHEWS: Scott, I`ll tell you, a few pieces jump off the page at me, yours did. This president, what is it? Because he seemed to spend a lot of time with us during the campaign. Not a lot of personal one-to-one time with reporters, obviously, we sensed that.

But the people felt something from him, I felt something from him obviously.

Why does he avoid people and contact with individual people now?

SCOTT WILSON, THE WASHINGTON POST: I think part of what you`re describing was the genius of that campaign. People projected what they wanted to on this president. He was wonderful on the stump. He gave sophisticated serious speeches, treated the public with a lot of respect, but the public in abstract largely.

And when it comes to governing, the model is very different. It requires a lot of person to person contact, whether it`s with Hill Democrats or donors, and he is not interested in that. He does not like doing that from what I`ve been told.

So we're clear here, what has Tweety's panties in a bunch seems to be the fact that the President of this United States doesn't hang out with him anymore, doesn't toss back a couple of home brews with him like the heady days of the 2008 campaign.

Really? Oh, and yes, Tweety goes there, saying he isn't loving Ed Rendell enough these days. Rendell is a Tweety favorite, as Digby wrote in 2008:

Tweety has been fellating Rendell for the past year, giving him all kinds of face time, particularly throughout the run-up to the Pennsylvania primary, when he was practically on every day. It's been the most gruesome and blatant suck-up session I've ever seen in public.

What is this really about? Does Tweety really expect the President to just ring him up and invite him up to the White House for a beer? Yes, I think he does.

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With such high unemployment numbers in the black community, this was inevitable -- especially given Obama's stated reluctance to target African Americans for specific help -- even though unemployment is hitting them twice as hard:

New cracks have begun to show in President Obama’s support amongst African Americans, who have been his strongest supporters. Five months ago, 83 percent of African Americans held “strongly favorable” views of Obama, but in a new Washington Post-ABC news poll that number has dropped to 58 percent. That drop is similar to slipping support for Obama among all groups.

“There is a certain amount of racial loyalty and party loyalty, but eventually that was going to have to weaken,” said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, who studies African Americans. “It’s understandable given the economy.”

African Americans have historically correlated approval ratings of the president to the unemployment rate, she said. The slip in the strongly favorable rating continues the decline Obama has seen among all groups, but black voters have been his staunchest supporters. Overall, they still hold a generally favorable view of the president with 86 percent saying they view him at least somewhat favorably.

Gillespie’s view that the decline is tied to the disproportionately high jobless rate faced by African Americans correlates with the drop in their view of Obama’s handling of the economy. In July, only 54 percent of blacks said they thought Obama’s policies were making the economy better compared with 77 percent the previous year.

Similarly, the White House has been sharply criticized in recent months by black political leaders, who argue that he has not done enough to help blacks. The unemployment rate for African Americans hit 16 percent this summer, the highest rate since 1984, and the members of the Congressional Black Caucus launched a jobs tour focused on the problem.

This week the caucus is holding its annual legislative caucus in Washington, and the focus of a series of morning panels Wednesday was the lack of progress on jobs. Rep. Maxine Waters, who has been pushing Obama and publicly chided an administration official during the jobs tour to say the word “black” and directly address the needs of the community, said she would “continue to push the president and the Congress to adopt targeted policies to address the need.”

Waters, who heads the CBC’s jobs initiative, said she saw the frustration that is registering in the president’s polls at the jobs fairs she attended. “I saw the kind of hopelessness that is setting in. People were not only discouraged, they came to try to get a job, but they didn’t really believe that something substantive was going to happen,” she said.

Clyde McQueen, who is African American and runs a job placement firm in Kansas City, agreed. “The masses of young people and the first-time voter and entry-level workers are being so adversely impacted through downsizing at all levels,” said McQueen, who is attending the CBC meetings this week. “They are looking at the head of the government. When you are at the top, you take the blame.”

And yet, MSNBC talking head and Nation writer Melissa Harris-Perry seems to think Obama's dropping poll numbers are based on a more insidious form of racism:

President Obama has experienced a swift and steep decline in support among white Americans—from 61 percent in 2009 to 33 percent now. I believe much of that decline can be attributed to their disappointment that choosing a black man for president did not prove to be salvific for them or the nation. His record is, at the very least, comparable to that of President Clinton, who was enthusiastically re-elected. The 2012 election is a test of whether Obama will be held to standards never before imposed on an incumbent. If he is, it may be possible to read that result as the triumph of a more subtle form of racism.

Once again, a member of the media/academic Village misses the obvious: We didn't have all these people struggling to find work during the Clinton administration. In fact, unemployment was at 4.7 percent - not like the double-digit, long-term unemployment we have now. Not this sense of hopelessness.

It's still the economy. Racism didn't magically disappear, but the economy still matters more than anything else.

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Her argument:

But being a jerk, even on an Edwardsian scale, is not a felony, which is what federal prosecutors have been pursuing for more than two years. The original theory of the case was that Edwards misused campaign funds to support his mistress, Rielle Hunter. That would have been a serious matter, except the theory fizzled.

Yes, that theory fizzled largely because large donors, like Fred Baron and Rachel Mellon decided to pony up the funds to keep Rielle Hunter out of sight and out of the media's eye. They only did that for one reason: To keep Edwards' primary bid alive. To that end, they spent nearly one million dollars.

Marcus thinks that's not a felony.

Even if you were to conclude that the payments to Hunter constituted impermissible campaign contributions, there is the more serious question of whether criminal prosecution is the appropriate remedy. A single advisory opinion hardly seems like adequate notice that funneling money to Hunter could land Edwards in prison.

I am bipartisanly squeamish about the criminalization of politics; I have been as critical of a (Democratic) Texas district attorney’s prosecution of former House majority leader Tom DeLay on money-laundering charges as I am about the threatened Edwards indictment.

As is just about everyone in Washington DC. Campaign finance disclosure? Hell, no. Corporate contributions directly to candidates? Sure, why not?

The problems in Washington relate directly to campaign finance. It's driven home over and over and over again. When Republican congressmen whine about the national debt and de-fund piddly little green energy initiatives while voting down repeal of oil and gas subsidies, it's because their campaign bids are supported by those oil and gas companies. When Democrats water down financial regulation or delay health insurance reform, it's because of the pressure put on them by the same wealthy interests.

So being bipartisanly squeamish about campaign finance, which does not criminalize of politics but does identify corrupt politicians, is a comfortable place to be, but it's erosive to democracy.

This kind of thinking in one of the most respected publications for national politics just drives me crazy. What would have happened if Edwards' affair with Hunter had not been discovered by the press and he'd gone on to win the nomination and the election. Would those wealthy donors have simply said, oh well, mission accomplished, and it only cost one million? Marcus never takes her thinking to the next step, to the implications of what it really means to have a few wealthy donors in charge of a secret and financing the coverup.

Yes. It is likely criminal. I have no issue with the DOJ's recommendation. I simply wish they would exercise the same kind of principled thinking on issues like John Ensign and Tom Coburn's payoffs to Ensign's mistress, Wall Street thuggery, bank fraud, and other areas where wealthy donors wield far more influence.

Anyone who knows me knows I am not a fan of John McCain, but his op-ed in the Washington Post should settle the question of whether torture "worked" to locate and kill Osama Bin Laden.

But this must be an informed debate. Former attorney general Michael Mukasey recently claimed that “the intelligence that led to bin Laden . . . began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who broke like a dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information — including eventually the nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden.” That is false.

I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden — as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.

In fact, the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married and ceased his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator — none of which was true. According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee — information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’s real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to bin Laden — was obtained through standard, noncoercive means.

It's interesting to see how the Sunday shows -- never shy about inviting McCain to their panels -- completely ignored him in favor of the neocons and torture apologists. Why is that?

[**My Terror Gap Segment on The Big Picture w/ Thom Hartmann begins at 6:47 of this video]

Like most New Yorkers (where I grew up), other Americans, and sentient beings throughout the globe, I am elated that Osama bin Laden will no longer be able to ply his trade. It's been a long process, but the man who turned that beautiful September day back in 2001 into a nightmare for me, as I was watching from Delancey Street, and the rest of the world whether watching from the streets or on their television set, has finally been truly held accountable for his actions.

But now is not the time to simply celebrate and forget that there are many more out there like him. They may lack his funding or charisma, but they do not lack his ambition. This is why it was ironic that the same week we finally got our man, we learned that 90% of those on the Terror Watch List who have tried since 2005 have successfully purchased guns (to say nothing of explosives, which they also have legal access to).

This is a serious gap in our law that needs to be addressed. To quote from a report by Senator Frank Lautenberg:

In June 2009, Sen. Lautenberg and Congressmen John Conyers (D-MI) and Bobby Scott (D-VA) released a new GAO report finding that, from February 2004 to February 2009, there were 963 cases in which a known or suspected terrorist attempted to buy a gun. In 90 percent of those cases -- a total of 865 times -- they were cleared to proceed with that purchase. One of those cases involved the purchase of explosives.

According to the report, which the lawmakers requested in July 2008, only 10 percent of the time were terrorist suspects denied weapons because of disqualifying factors, such as a felony conviction or illegal immigrant status. Being on the Terrorist Watch List is currently not a disqualifying factor for buying firearms.

In response to this report, Sen. Lautenberg has introduced legislation to close the "terror gap" in the nation's gun laws by giving the Attorney General authority to stop the sale of guns or explosives to terrorists. Under current federal law, there is no legal way to stop someone on the Terrorist Watch List from buying guns and explosives.

We should push for Senator Lautenberg's legislation to be passed now. It has had bipartisan support in the past, including the strong backing of former President George W. Bush.

If you don't think we should get on this forthwith, just remember, there are those who will want to take revenge for bin Laden's killing. And there are those who will continue to plan attacks on the United States because it is such a tempting target. They may not have the capabilities to pull off a large scale attack like the one on 9/11. But by allowing them to purchase Jared Loughner's Glock with an assault clip, or (God help us) explosives, we are asking for trouble.

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Inside the Beltway there are Very Important People with Very Important Ideas that everyone must listen to and accept as Truth and Fact. Digby calls them Villagers. I call them self-important fools. Yesterday, the Very Important Voices wrote an Editorial in the Most Important Publication -- The Washington Post.

These Very Important Voices are annoyed at ordinary Americans for refusing to acknowledge that Medicare, as it exists today, just cannot -- CANNOT -- exist.

Democrats have effectively scared seniors as a political tactic for many years. Republicans turned the tables in 2010, using the Medicare scare tactic against Democrats. Now Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has given President Obama and his party a chance to reclaim the low ground, and they haven’t hesitated.

You see, according to these Very Important Voices, we are not under any circumstances to speak the truth according to what the Republicans actually do, rather than what they say. We are not supposed to mention that under Paul Ryan's plan, seniors are thrown to the whims of insurance companies. We are not supposed to mention under any circumstances that even if Medicare were to continue for people age 55 and older, there are a vast number of us between the ages of 45 and 55 who will be well and righteously screwed by this plan, just as we have been well and righteously screwed by insurers for the last 20 years.

According to Those Who Know Everything And How It Must Play Out, we're just giving short shrift to a bold, realistic plan for cost containment.

But it’s honest enough to acknowledge that simply preserving Medicare as we know it is not an option. Society is aging and health-care costs are rising so fast that, absent some change, Medicare will gobble up the biggest share of federal spending.

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There is simply no understanding the prevalence of gun violence in America - as evidenced by the recent attempted assassination of a congresswoman during a mass shooting - without discussing the nefarious role played by the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Once an organisation primarily concerned with the education and training of sportsmen, in a coup that came to be known as the Cincinnati Revolt in 1977, hardliners took over the leadership and believed that any gun regulation would take us down a slippery slope to Khmer Rougism.

In the years since, unlike the US in the wake of the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy - or for that matter Australia after the Port Arthur Massacre - the response to senseless gun violence has been to discuss everything from the rhetoric on our airwaves to the weather outside.

But any public conversations regarding restricting who has access to guns has been considered verboten (although, thankfully, this time some cracks are beginning to show).

This is largely because the NRA's duping its own members, which we'll discuss below, and coming to the realisation that the real money was in actually protecting the rights of gun manufacturers, which we'll discuss in Part II of this series.

If the NRA leadership is not radical, they certainly see the benefit in playing radicals on TV in order to enrich their financial benefactors who produce and sell the weaponry of death.

In the 1990s, in a climate of fear and paranoia that produced the Oklahoma City bombing, they were all too happy to refer to the government authority that tries to enforce gun laws, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms (ATF), as "jack-booted thugs". This led former president George H.W. Bush to resign his membership.

They then decided to up the ante by accusing former president Bill Clinton of murder and saying he "had blood on his hands" - all for the crime of supporting background checks at gun shows - which is among the many legislative proposals to reduce gun violence that they have repeatedly blocked.

Others include a ban on high-capacity magazines, banning sales to those on terrorist watch lists, and fully funding the aforementioned ATF (think about the latter when they say they want to "strengthen existing gun laws" after each new tragedy).

In fact, just a few days after the mass shooting in Tucson it was reported by Ryan Reilly from TPMMuckraker that a "jihadist" in America who was... "a moderator and contributor on Islamic extremist web forums, posted songs praising suicide bombers, discussed his jihad fantasies in the open..." was able to get an AK-47, no questions asked.

Emerson Begolly, the "jihadist" in question, responded when queried about this with laughter and facetiously exclaimed that "someone at the FBI showed up to work drunk". Perhaps, but if they were, it was only because the NRA forced them to do keg stands.

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