When progressives wanted the public option fast-tracked through the Senate by putting it in a reconciliation bill, Harry Reid simply choose not to do it. Yet now, Reid is working on a way to potentially allow a devastating package of cuts in Medicare and Social Security to move through the Senate at lightening speed.

Last night the Republicans offered to do a short term increase of the debt ceiling to prevent default and President Obama angrily dismissed it, according to the Huffington Post: At issue was Cantor’s repeated push to do a short-term resolution and Obama’s insistence that he would not accept one. “Eric, don’t call my bluff. I’m [...]

Cantor offered a temporary extension three times last night, and by both Democratic and GOP accounts, that’s what made Obama snap. You gotta feel sorry for the guy. His most ardent supporters are the dumbest motherfuckers in the world, and they don’t  realize he thinks they are digging his political grave.

Manning says that these individuals are “politically tied,” which confirms what I’ve heard before regarding his tenure in DC. If so, did the status of these ex-boyfriends have an impact on his conditions? Was he locked away in solitary confinement, unable to talk to almost anyone for months, because nobody wanted it known the extent to which he had cultivated sources and relationships at the “highest levels”?

RSVP for July 19th:Visit Your Local Congressional Office to Oppose Cutting the Social Safety Net RSVP to our National Day of Action to protect social security and visit your representatives to oppose President Obama’s plan to cut benefits. In response to President Obama’s warning that Social Security recipients may not receive their monthly checks on [...]

Corporate America and the GOP have been playing a very dangerous game, throwing enormous amounts of money behind PR campaigns demagoguing the very deficit that their radical manipulation of the political system created in the first place. They thought they could hide their true intentions under the cloak of fiscal responsibility and good governance. The fact that the very tool they virtually invented to captivate the democratic process finally turned around and bit them in the ass is almost Shakespearean in its irony.

During an interview with with CBS News President Obama said he couldn’t guarantee that Social Security checks will go out after August 3rd. Clearly the move is a scare tactic to force Congress into reaching a deal, but what Obama is threatening is both illegal, unconstitutional and financially illogical. There is no reason Social Security [...]

Obama is no deficit hawk or policy wonk, he is a big deal hawk. He seems to wants to get big bipartisan deals for the sake of getting big deals. He fights for a bipartisan deal even with getting a deal is totally unnecessary to achieving his stated policy goals.

The White House has been trying to maneuver everyone into reach a big austerity deal, but I simply can’t see Obama carrying out his short term veto threat unless the administration had been lying other aspects of the debt ceiling issue.

The Obama Administration seems fairly proud of their current performance and think they are politically winning the debate over the debt ceiling right now by appearing to be more reasonable and the “only adult in the room.”

These poll numbers though make it seem like far too little has been done to explain to regular people what is actually going on in the debate and what is at stake