The deficit reduction plan President Obama vaguely outlined yesterday lacks basic credibility. The problem isn’t that the math doesn’t add up–it is at least a dramatic improvement over Republican Paul Ryan’s plan, which literally defies logic and basic math. This issue is that many of the reductions President Obama promised yesterday come from actions that [...]

To make his Republican budget more politically palatable, Paul Ryan decided to go with an age-based “divide and conquer” strategy. He promised to keep Medicare intact for those currently on it and those above 55, and will only turn it into a privatized voucher program for those under 55. The Third Way, with whom I [...]

It seems many on the left, like Paul Krugman, are quite happy with President Obama’s deficit speech. I will even admit to it being much better than what I feared, but that is only because some truly terrible trial balloons managed to set expectations incredibly low to begin with. The important point of the speech [...]

Dennis Kucinich again spoke out against the US Government’s refusal to allow him to have an “official visit” with Wikileaks whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning, saying that Manning’s treatment “is more consistent with Kafka than the US Constitution.”

President Obama used very forceful language to strongly oppose Paul Ryan’s Republican plan to privatize Medicare. The President described Ryan’s proposal as leaving people to the mercy of the insurance industry: I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit [...]

We, as a country, don’t have a budget deficit problem as Daily Show pointed out last night and David Leonhardt explained this morning. From Leonhardt: A trick question: If Congress takes no action in coming years, what will happen to the budget deficit? It will shrink — and shrink a lot. This simple fact may [...]

On Twitter last night, Crowley renewed his campaign against the Pentagon’s torture of Manning. In two tweets, Crowley contrasted the State Department’s push for human rights for an American held by North Korea with the Pentagon’s decision to “play by its own rules” in denying the UN Special Rappoteur on Torture an official visit with Bradley Manning.

On his blog, Paul Krugman has suggested one “really radical” proposal to fixing our health care cost problem is to modestly expand socialized medicine in this country. But if you want a really radical proposal — but one that, unlike privatization, actually has strong evidence on its side — why not add a true public [...]

The US Government appears to be sweating from the heat brought on by the United Nations after the international organization’s lead torture investigator publicly criticized the United States’ decision to deny official visits to Wikileaks whistleblower Bradley Manning. Sign our letter to Quantico and Pentagon leaders: follow your own rules and allow official visits to PFC. Bradley Manning. Click here to add your name.

When health care reform was first passed, elected Democrats told progressives not to worry about how bad the bill actually was because it would serve only as a “starter home” that would be improved on later. Since then, however, several changes have been or will be signed into law by President Obama, all of which [...]