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It cannot be repeated enough: He who frames the argument wins the debate.

And so it is telling how the networks wish to frame the debate for marriage equality. Who do they book?

• Meet the Press: Ralph Reed, head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, and who narrowly missed conviction for his role in the Jack Abramoff scandal.
• Face the Nation: Tony Perkins, whose Family Research Council is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for their persistent and ongoing hate speech against the gay community.
• and Austin Nimocks of the Alliance Defending Freedom, who also showed up on CNN’s State of the Union.
• Fox News Sunday: Gary Bauer, president of American Values

With the exception of Hilary Rosen on Meet the Press, did the news shows bother to book a gay person whose life and rights are directly affected? Pffftt...silly liberal!

What really matters is how conservative Christians who are out of step with the majority of Americans (no matter how much they want to deny it and not have that challenged), doncha know?

Imagine! When children have higher co-pays, they tend to not get adequate treatment for their asthma.

Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journalism Review has been doing great work on untangling the intentions of the Very Serious People toward our social safety net. This time, she deciphers Obama's State of the Union message for his intentions toward Medicare cuts -- the so-called "modest reforms" he mentioned:

The president’s State of the Union message may have sort of resolved the question: “Will he or won’t he touch Medicare? The answer: he probably will, a conclusion based on his cryptically grand rhetoric. The president called for those who care deeply about Medicare to “embrace the need for modest reforms—otherwise our retirement programs will crowd out the investments we need for our children.” Vague enough!

Next came some “specifics.” Obama said he was prepared to enact reforms that will achieve the same amount of healthcare savings by the beginning of the next decade as those proposed by the Simpson-Bowles commission. The Simpson and Bowles reference probably flew over many heads. Three years ago, the president appointed the commission to recommend steps for reducing the deficit. It was chaired by the former Wyoming senator, Alan Simpson, and the former Clinton chief of staff, Erskine Bowles, and composed of Democrats and Republicans. They could not agree on final recommendations, but issued a report anyway. It’s time to dust it off.

The Simpson-Bowles plan called for a global budget for all federal government healthcare spending, and for limiting healthcare outlays to the rate of GDP growth plus one percent. And it laid out several changes to Medicare, with price tags for each adding up to billions.

What’s significant is that the proposals shift some of the cost of care from the federal government to seniors, along the lines of the bill introduced by Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, which we parsed last week. Like Corker’s bill, Simpson-Bowles would require seniors to pay one $550 deductible instead of separate deductibles for various Medicare services. And like Corker, seniors would have to pay $7,500 of their expenses out-of-pocket.

As we wrote last week, that would be tough for millions of beneficiaries, considering that half of them have incomes of $24,000 or less.

Such a requirement for seniors would be a death sentence for many.

Continue reading »

Tea Party correspondent Susie Sampson presses the proverbial man (and woman) in the street what they thought about the State of the Union address.

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On Tuesday night, Florida GOP Golden Child Sen. Marco Rubio delivered a pre-written "response" to President Obama's State of the Union address where he bravely knocked down strawman after strawman, criticizing the president for things he didn't say, and for failing to address subjects that he, in fact, did (like "Medicare" and "early education").

During the senator's speech, he made a point of mentioning that he doesn't live among "millionaires" but instead among immigrants, retirees and senior citizens on fixed incomes. One would be forgiven if they came away believing that Senator Rubio lives in the barrio, among some of the poorest people in Miami.

Mr. President, I still live in the same working class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren't millionaires. They're retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They're workers who have to get up early and go to work to pay the bills. They're immigrants who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy.

Problem is, Rubio's working class home has been up for sale at the bargain price of more than two thirds of a million dollars as he seeks to move out of that neighborhood to DC.

Bill Moyers asked for progressive suggestions for tonight's address, and he got some great answers. Here are my top three:

Bill Haidt says political reform is a must.

We are not making the best laws we can, and our children are going to pay the price in higher taxes and reduced benefits. Should we just throw up our hands in despair? Or should we roll up our sleeves and do something about it? My top priority for 2013 is political reform.

Diane Ravitch wants a challenge to out-educate and out-innovate other nations and put an end to vouchers and charter school initiatives. This one is my personal favorite.

Over the past four years, I have learned what we need to do. First, we must end the pressure on teachers to teach to the test. I have said it before and I will say it again: We want teachers to teach with creativity and passion. I call on states not to pay bonuses to teachers to produce higher test scores and to stop evaluating teachers based on the test scores of their students. We now realize that this causes teaching to the test. That must stop now. Of course, teachers should be evaluated, but they should be evaluated by other professionals, not by their students’ test scores.

Too much testing crushes creativity and innovation, and that’s why we must stop it — now.

Continue reading »

I don't know how to break it to Rand Paul, but the fact that he's even giving a competing response to Marco Rubio's State of the Union rebuttal for Republicans is a clear indication of the division within the Republican party between the Birch faction and the pretend-moderate faction. This interview with Candy Crowley is almost comical, particularly with regard to Paul's insistence that he won't be divisive simply because he's giving a separate response.

"I see it as an extra response. I don't see it as necessarily divisive," Paul told chief political correspondent Candy Crowley on the CNN program "State of the Union."

"I won't say anything on there that necessarily is like, 'Marco Rubio is wrong,'" Paul continued. "He and I don't always agree, but this isn't about he and I. This is about the Tea Party, which is a grass-roots movement, a real movement, with millions of Americans that still are concerned about some of the deal-making that goes on in Washington."

Baby Paul has been asked to give his response by the Tea Party Express. The Tea Party Express is just as mainstream Republican as the RNC is, except that it caters to the Birch Society side of the GOP. There's nothing independent about them. Sal Russo, who has long-standing ties back to the Howard Jarvis anti-tax, anti-immigrant, pro-corporate Ross Perot contingent, is their lobbyist/leader. Other than a deeper hate toward brown people than mainstream Republicans, there's just not that much daylight between them.

Either Baby Paul has been asked to give his response in the hope of reigniting some of the 2010 fire now for 2014, or else he's been chosen to give the point of view of those who want to deport every undocumented immigrant and send prison inmates out to pick the crops.

Whichever it is, it highlights a division in the party simply by virtue of the desire to put him out there as the spokesman for the tainted Tea Party brand. I'm sure Paul's pals at Stormfront.org will cheer him on, at least.

Go for it, Rand. You and 8 percent of the country are simpatico. That should be a great runup to 2014, pal.

Remember these words from Paul Krugman last week?

The threat to the recovery is Washington.

In anticipation of President Obama's State of the Union address this coming Tuesday, Chris Hayes asked what economist Paul Krugman (who has been right about economic issues all along, mind you) what he would like to hear in the address. While acknowledging with resignation that he probably won't get his wish, Krugman responds that he'd rather not hear the legitimization of deficit pearl clutching and advocation of austerity measures.

Like the rest of us liberals clamoring to be heard through the self-protecting insulation of the Beltway Bubble, Krugman makes the point that none of what he's advocated is more sophisticated than Econ 101, a class one would assume that every college graduate (which would be most members of Congress ) has taken. Yet these very basic economic concepts are alien to the Beltway.

It’s a very insular culture in Washington. It’s one of people who hang out together, who talk to each other, who don’t listen…what’s odd about my position on this stuff is I am, for the most part, not doing any kind of odd, unorthodox economics. I’m doing Macroeconomics 101, but that is not what people in DC hear. It’s not that they just don’t accept it. For the most part, they haven’t even heard about it. The notion that oh, the budget deficit is not a problem when the economy is depressed is barely in the Washington discourse. And because I’m still in touch with Macroeconomics 101, I’m really sort of out of it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we already know the solutions to our economic woes. We've gotten out of them before and we know what works. It has never been cutting spending and lowering taxes, no matter how many Republicans get booked on the Sunday shows to flood the discourse.

But in a sad addition to the "both sides do it" meme, the fact remains that even though these basic economic concepts and solutions remain patently obvious to those of us outside the Beltway Bubble, even those who should understand and embrace Keynesian economics miss the point, continually, as Dan Pfeiffer proves with this White House blog:

With less than three weeks before devastating, across the board cuts - the so-called "sequester" - are slated to hit, affecting our national security, job creation and economic growth, we must make sure we are having a debate over how to deal with these looming deadlines that is based on facts- not myths being spread by some Congressional Republicans who would rather see these cuts hit than ask the wealthiest and big corporations to pay a little bit more.

First, the notion that President Obama hasn't put forward a solution to deal with these looming cuts is false. In the fall of 2011, the President put forward a proposal to the Supercommittee for the specific purpose of laying out his vision to resolve the sequester and reduce our deficit by over $4 trillion dollars in a balanced way- by cutting spending, finding savings in entitlement programs and asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share. That proposal would have completely turned off the sequester while further reducing our deficit and ensuring we could still invest in the things we need to grow our economy and create jobs. That same approach was presented to Congress in the President's budget last year. And the President's last offer to Speaker Boehner in December remains on the table- an offer that meets the Republicans halfway on spending and on revenues, and would permanently turn off the sequester and put us on a fiscally sustainable path.

We should have a debate over how to best reduce the deficit. But with only three weeks until these indiscriminate cuts hit, Congress should find a short term package to give themselves a little more time to find a solution to permanently turn off the sequester. That package should have balance and include spending cuts and revenues.

Why on earth do we accept the framing of these ill-informed, petulant children on how the economy works instead of demanding that we adopt the measures that brought this country back into unprecedented levels of prosperity for most of its citizens after the Great Depression? When do the adults with the real solutions get their place at the table?

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Being one of the Villager Elite means never having to account for your failures. And Carly Fiorina has had a lot of failures in her life.

Her star power rose with her meteoric rise to the head of Lucent Technologies. But even as Fortune Magazine was touting her as one of the most powerful women in the country, Lucent's own books reflected the same fast and loose accounting and reckless leveraging that characterized the elites' trashing of the economy. But you know what the Villagers paid attention to: her $65 million paycheck.

Her record at HP is a little better known, although equally ignored by the media. But what do the Villagers care about? That $45 million golden parachute to exit the former Fortune 500 company she ran into the ground.

Since exiting HP, Fiorina has dabbled in politics, advising the failed John McCain campaign on economics (an area in which voters distinctly distrusted the candidate) before launching her own failed campaign to unseat Barbara Boxer (though she did win the distinction of one of the ugliest and most incomprehensible campaign ads).

So let's recap, shall we? Failed running of two major corporations, failed political campaigns, elite disregard of responsible economic growth, lay offs and big money payoffs for a distinct lack of success.

So tell me, what about her track record would cause CNN to go to Carly Fiorina for her take on the economy?

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So we have an economy in fragile recovery, a deeply divided electorate, millions of people out of work, women's health and reproductive rights under assault, several hot spots in the Middle East which may turn into yet another boondoggle for our troops, the largest income disparity since the Gilded Age, and huge issues that need in depth discussion and analysis.

So what does Candy Crowley want to talk about? The GOP candidates' choices of music at campaign events, natch.

One of the richest men in the country, ranking in the 0.006 percent of Americans, likes to accuse the President of creating an “entitlement society.” Mitt Romney, the heir apparent, next in line GOP nominee … is against entitlement.

When I hear “entitlement society” I think, “country club.” But When Mitt uses that phrase he doesn’t mean rich guys like him, given all the advantages of wealth, who are now enjoying its comforts – he means the rest of us. Yes, Mitt is against an “entitlement society” because that involves too many people and not just him and his ilk. It’s not the “entitlement” he contests – it’s the entire “society” part.

At the Monday Florida debate last week Mitt noted that under Gingrich’s tax plan Mitt would pay no taxes at all. Gingrich responded with, “Well, if that -- and if you created enough jobs doing that -- it was Alan Greenspan who first said the best rate, if you want to create jobs for capital gains, is zero.”

So rich people whose money makes their money (it’s literally capital gaining) are so fortunate they get to hire other people to pay taxes for them? Rich people with their alleged mythical power to create jobs even get to outsource their tax obligations to poor saps working for a living?

This is the prosperity gospel as a Super PAC-funded marketing blitz. Money is next to godliness and poverty is the fault of the poor for not being better people.

It’s as if Jesus were a CEO and the Romans job-killing communists.

“Contrary to the President's constant disparagement of people in business,” former George W. Bush budget director Gov. Mitch Daniels said in his State of the Union response last week, “It's one of the noblest of human pursuits.” This is one of those phrases you (usually) will only hear in business school (funnier if it was one of those rip-off for-profit colleges). Business is one of the noblest of human pursuits? Noble as in aristocratic? That phrase, “noble pursuits,” is usually applied to an avocation not paying much but rewarding in other ways: teachers; firefighters; nurses; foster parents; soldiers; community leaders; social workers; mentors; rescue workers; care givers; farmers. Or to anyone who’s honest, shows up every day and works hard. That’s a noble pursuit.

Are the wealthy really so sensitive they need Mitch Daniels to make them feel better about themselves in a spiritual sense? What they’re doing not only pays off with privilege and cash – it also has to be venerable from a moral perspective? How much reward does one group need? They own everything and they also need to be thanked?!

The rich are not just over-paid – they’re over valued. And generous welfare recipients.

As Senator Tom Coburn points out in his damning Nov. 2011 report, “Subsidies of the Rich and Famous,” we are a wealthfare state. It reads, “This reverse Robin Hood style of wealth redistribution is an intentional effort to get all Americans bought into a system where everyone appears to benefit.” In other words: We subsidize the rich by telling the poor to pay their fair share.

It’s been a strange three years under the Obama administration. First the GOP was against empathy. Yes, the party had to vehemently opposed seeing the plight of your fellow human beings because Obama was for it. Now their new hot button word? Fairness. Obama used the word fairness in his third State of the Union. And now the GOP has decided to be against fairness and celebrate inequality as being the thing that makes America great.

It’s as if Jesus were a CEO and the three wise men were shareholders.

The prosperity gospel is not America. It’s not democratic. It’s not even Christian. It’s greed warped into being a virtue by the greedy.

The rich aren’t better, they’re just richer.