A Steelworker’s Personal Fight To Beat John Boehner In 2014

John Boehner's opponent in 2014 is an Army Veteran, steelworker, husband, father of triplets and a native son of Ohio - and aims to give the 8th District the representation it deserves.

 By Nathaniel Downes

While the President is elected every 4 years, and a Senator every 6, members of the House of Representatives are up for elections every two years. Which means every two years, every member of Congress must face off against whatever challenger happens to be running against them. John Boehner has been safe in his seat for many years, without a strong challenger running against him, and always enjoyed double-digit leads over any challenger, never getting under 60% of the vote.

Many times, the Democratic Party did not even bother running a candidate against Congressman Boehner.

However, in 2014, times are changing.

Meet Andrew Hounshell, an Army Veteran, steelworker, father, husband. Here he is with Ohio Senator, Sherrod Brown:


He is still getting organized, but so far has been pounding the pavement, engaging in the old fashioned method of campaigning. Instead of fancy ad blitz campaigns paid for with big corporate money, he’s out there meeting people, taking his message to them. His donation page is set up for the small time donor. He has 20 months in which to get his message to the people of the 8th District of Ohio. And he is wasting no time in doing it.

But, as to why he is running, I will leave explaining that up to his own words:

Why I’m A Democrat
By Andrew Hounshell

I was 5 years old when I heard the dreadful news that our President had been shot in a failed assassination attempt. Even at that young age, I felt the impact the event had on the grown-ups around me. On the way to the grocery store, I asked my mother if we could get a get well card and send it to President Reagan. Together, we picked out one and mailed it to the White House. A few weeks later we received an official letter on White House Stationary from the President, thanking me for the well wishes. Our local newspaper ran a story, “Middletown Boy Gets White House Response,” and I was the talk of the town. From that moment on, this 5 year old from southwest Ohio loved President Reagan and thought he could do no wrong.

Fast forward 10 or 12 years, my brother was stationed in Germany while serving in the Army and was being transferred to Ft. Lewis, Washington unable to take any leave to visit his family due to his orders. His wife had given birth to our parent’s first grandchild and they had yet been able to see him. As legend goes (time clouds the memories in my family), someone made a call to our Congressman’s office (then a fairly new John Boehner) and my brother was able to get his orders changed so he could take leave and visit with his family before reporting to Ft. Lewis. In my young impressionable eyes, John Boehner was personally responsible for me getting to see my nephew for the first time, and getting to spend some precious time with my oldest brother after not seeing him for years. Once again, a young Andrew Hounshell was quite impressed by yet another Republican politician showing how much they cared about my family. These guys were great!

What I didn’t know was what was happening to other families around me. If I had been older than 5 years old when I bought that Get Well card, I might have known that it was only five months later, when our President fired over 11,000 PATCO striking Union workers; a move which has been described as starting “America’s downward spiral;” that our nation’s wages would stagnant for the rest of my life. That decision didn’t affect me as a kid, but nearly 30 years later, it is an event that persuaded me to take a deeper look into policy decisions that our elected officials make and ask myself a deeper question. Could it be the dear Republicans I grew up admiring, were not as supportive of the very middle class that I now spend my adult life fighting for?

Memories like mine can mold and shape a person’s voting patterns for a lifetime.

Luckily for me, my thirties brought on a time of clarity. There wasn’t one particular event that turned on a light bulb, but rather a combination of many: college, union work, community work, my father relying on the VA for health care, my mother relying on her Social Security to survive, in-laws going without health insurance because they can’t afford it after my father in-law was laid-off from Delphi, having 3 children at one time (the list goes on and on). I realized that through policy, our elected officials do have a huge impact on our livelihood. Through cuts in Social Security, appointments to the NLRB, cuts to the VA, immigration reform (or lack thereof), tax loopholes for corporations, subsidies to oil companies, etc., our middle class has been eroded and we are not taking care of those who can no longer take care of themselves.

The Republicans I loved as a child, and I thought loved me back, were the very ones who were supporting this erosion. How could this be?

The five year old in me feels so betrayed. It turns out, I’ve been caught up in a very real version of the fairytale, Little Red Riding Hood. At first glance, Grandma looked sweet and innocent, with her thank you card from the White House and an a few weeks of leave for a soldier to visit his family. Now that I am all grown up and have a family of my own to support, I see what big teeth you have, and how you have used them to take a huge bite out of the Middle Class. Like many voters in Ohio’s 8^th District and in this country, I see the GOP for what it really is. No disguise is good enough to hide the Big Bad Wolf these days.

Now I dedicate my time to trying to make this world a better place for my children and that includes supporting those who actually support the working class in this country. In 2012, when I looked for that person in the 8th District of Ohio, the ballot was blank. It was then that I decided in 2014 there was going to be a Democratic option for my family, neighbors, coworkers, and community; an option that leads to re-building our Middle Class and a stronger America.

No More Boehner. Our Time is Now.

We could not say it any better ourselves.

If you want to support Andrew Hounshell in his fight to remove John Boehner from congress, feel free to donate to his campaign, or at least drop him a note on his Facebook page. And we wish him the best of luck?

---

Nathaniel Downes is the son of a former state representative of New Hampshire, now living in Seattle Washington.

Feel free to follow Nathaniel Downes on Facebook.

Dream team crushed?

On Friday, we learned that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum discussed joining forces to keep Mitt Romney from winning the GOP nomination. Ed Show viewers share their thoughts about the “unity ticket.”

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Paralyzed Iraq Vet Tomas Young Discusses His 'Last Letter' to Bush & Cheney, His Decision to Die

 Tells 'Democracy Now!' his decision to end life comes after years of being 'sick and tired of being sick and tired'...

 

By Brad Friedman on 3/21/2013, 4:05pm PT  

Yesterday we published Tomas Young's "Last Letter: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from a Dying Veteran", in which the 33-year old U.S. Army veteran, paralyzed from the chest down during an ambush on a rescue mission in Iraq in 2004, announces his plan to soon allow himself to die, as his physical condition has intolerably deteriorated.

We included a link to our own interview with Tomas in 2005 when he first came down from Kansas City to "Camp Casey" in Crawford, TX, on his honeymoon, in support of Cindy Sheehan whose son Casey was killed on the same day, in the same city --- 4/4/04 in Sadr City --- where Tomas was shot twice and gravely injured in the unarmored truck his platoon had been sent out in.

Tomas has been a tremendously heroic and outspoken anti-war voice over the years, as we were reminded once again today during this morning's heart-wrenching episode of Democracy Now! devoted to his story.

Phil Donahue, co-director of the 2007 documentary film about Tomas, Body of War, (in which our '05 interview with Tomas is briefly seen) is on hand as well for the discussion. The hour included a live satellite interview with Tomas, who now struggles to speak. His thoughts seem very coherent, but what is left of his body and its functions are clearly breaking down. He is joined by his wife Claudia.

It is all worth watching, if you can spare the time. The clips from Body of War, especially the one in which Tomas speaks with the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-VA) as they read off the names together of the "Immortal 23" who voted against the Iraq War in the U.S. Senate, are particularly moving.

This is the story of the Iraq War ten years later --- and how it broke this nation just as surely as it broke Tomas Young's body and eventually his spirit and will to live...



After the lengthy segment above, Donahue is asked about his plight at MSNBC where he was fired just before the war began, as we would later find out from an internal executive memo, because his show included too many anti-war voices.

He says the episode reveals "how corporate media shapes our opinions and our coverage."

"They were terrified of the anti-war voice. And that is not an overstatement," Donahue says. "If you're General Electric, you certainly don't want an anti-war voice on a cable channel that you own. Donald Rumsfeld's your biggest customer!"

He explains again how he was required to have two pro-war voices for every anti-war voice he had on his show. "I could have [Bush Admin Iraq war hawk and architect] Richard Perle on alone, but I couldn't have Dennis Kucinich," he explains. "I was considered 'two liberals'." That segment can be watched here.

Finally, in the last moments of the show, Tomas reads his "Last Letter" to Bush and Cheney aloud and answers Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman's question as to whether there is anything that might lead him to change his mind about his decision to soon stop using his feeding tube in order to allow his life to end.

That video segment, including Tomas' answer to Goodman's question, follows below...

98 arrested as union protest blocks Las Vegas Strip for an hour

By Hannah Dreier of The Associated Press

LAS VEGAS — Throngs of workers blocked traffic on the Las Vegas Strip in a demonstration Wednesday against the Cosmopolitan casino that ended with the arrest of nearly 100 protesters.

Tourists watched from an overpass across Las Vegas Boulevard as police led workers wearing red union shirts one by one into a white police bus.

Police arrested 98 protesters, according to Metro Police Capt. Todd Fasulo. The workers chanted, "If we don't get no contract, you don't get no peace," as they waited to be taken away.

Las Vegas' largest and most powerful union has been in contract talks with Cosmopolitan Las Vegas owner Deutsche Bank for two years.

Earlier this year, the 54,000-member union held two one-day pickets outside the casino, which sits on a bustling corner in the heart of the tourist corridor. They marked Culinary Workers Local 226's first pickets on the Strip since 2003.

Wednesday's action was the first time union members deployed civil disobedience, the tactical use of nonviolent law breaking, outside a unionized casino in more than two decades, according to union spokeswoman Yvanna Cancela.

 

Cosmopolitan spokeswoman Amy Rossetti said management is continuing to negotiate with labor to "find a fair agreement." She added that the union was negotiating with casino management, not with Deutsche Bank directly.

Protesters shut down rush-hour traffic for more than an hour in both directions on the block that is also home to the Bellagio, Aria and Planet Hollywood casinos. Cancela estimated the crowd at about 1,500 people.

Moments before her hands were bound with a zip-tie, Janet Hill said she decided to get arrested to send management a message.

"They need to give workers here a contract; it affects us all," said Hill, a porter at the Flamingo casino down the Strip.

Contract negotiations will open for most other Strip casinos in April.

Talks with the Cosmopolitan have stalled on a range of issues, including wages, health care and job security, Cancela said.

The 2-year-old Cosmopolitan was built by the German investment bank after its original developer defaulted. It is one of just a handful of non-unionized casinos on the Strip, along with the Venetian, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, and the Palms.

Culinary Union members receive free health care and are paid above-average wages. Housekeepers in most Strip hotels start at $16 an hour and receive a pension.

A majority of Cosmopolitan service workers signed cards in 2010 saying they wanted representation.

On Wednesday, protesters said they were worried that Deutsche Bank was stalling because it intends to sell the casino and doesn't want to be burdened by a union contract.

Most tourists walked by the demonstration without breaking their stride. One couple turned around in surprise when a protester booed them for crossing the picket line.

Several visitors said they were annoyed at the inconvenience. But a few cheered on the workers as they marched in their navy, emerald and black casino uniforms. A few even joined in.

James Lewis, of Australia, took a photo of himself holding a sign reading, "No Justice, No Peace."

"I was surprised because I didn't know this was an issue here," said Lewis, who was in town for a friend's 40th birthday party. "I come from a place where health care is free, so this is something completely foreign."

Paulina Corona came to the protest in the brown uniform she wears as a housekeeper at the Mirage hotel-casino. She said the demonstration was important because mutual support creates strength.

"This is a union, and everybody is in it together. When there are problems at the Mirage, everyone goes there," she said.

Corona, 58, said that as a cancer survivor she worries that management could make workers shoulder more of their health care costs.

"Every day, they try to ask for more things," she said.

Obama’s visit to Israel more ‘awkward’ for Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave Republican candidate Mitt Romney a hero's welcome in Israel during the height of the 2012 presidential campaign, but today he rolled out the red carpet for the newly re-elected President Obama. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell discusses with P.J. Crowley, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, and Richard Wolffe, the executive editor of MSNBC.com.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Anonymous Veteran Leaves Stunning Note On Stranger’s Car, Story Goes Viral

By Lorraine Devon Wilke

Surprising gift from a passing vet; @Facebook

It was just another morning for Samantha Ford. She’d been with her two kids at at neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts outside Boston and as she gazed out the window toward the parking lot, she noticed what looked to be a ticket stuck onto her windshield. The morning just got worse. As the kids clamored back in the car minutes later, she reached over to grab the unwelcome ‘gift’ tucked into the window and that’s when she noticed it wasn’t a ticket after all. It was a note written on the back of an envelope… accompanied by two $20 bills.

Shocked, she looked around to see who might have left it but no one obvious appeared to be in the area. With money in hand, she read the note and was stunned to tears:

“I noticed the sticker on the back of your car. Take your hero out to dinner when he comes home. Thank you both for service. Him deployed and you for waiting. — United States Veteran, God Bless”

The car sticker the veteran referenced reads, “Half my heart is in Afghanistan,” where Ford’s boyfriend is currently deployed. She was so moved by the anonymous vet’s random act of kindness that she took a picture of the note and money and posted it on the “Our Deployment: 101 ” Facebook page (which describes itself as a collection of “military affiliate people just looking for kindness and inspiration”), adding this note of her own:

Samantha Ford > Our Deployment: 101
“I just thought I would share with you all what happened to me today! Came out of Dunkin Donuts and found this under my windshield wiper. There are no words to describe how I’m feeling right now. Tears in my eyes. I just wish I could thank whoever did this! God bless our troops and all of those who stand behind them. ♥”

As amazing stories like this are wont to do, the post went viral. As of this writing it has 1,691,239 “likes” and countless comments from people, some touched by the veteran’s act, others sharing their own stories of deployment.

The Today Show found the story moving, as well, and got in touch with Samantha. In an email correspondence, Samantha shared some of her thoughts. From TodayNewsToday:

“It was crazy!!” Ford told TODAY.com via email. “He was so touched and he said it’s people like this that make him proud to be an American Soldier. We are forever grateful and we will DEFINITELY be paying it forward! God bless our troops!”

Ford said she hopes the photograph will draw attention and recognition to the nation’s service members.

“They are all heroes. I just happen to be in love with one,” she said.

Her deployed boyfriend, Albert DeSimone, is assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armor Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division based in Fort Stewart, Ga.

Both Ford and DeSimone look forward to that dinner together when he gets home, courtesy of the “amazingly kind and heartwarming gift” from an anonymous vet, but mostly they want to convey how truly moved they are by the thoughtfulness and generosity of a stranger.

“We are forever grateful and will DEFINITELY be paying it forward… it’s amazing to know that there are still people in this world as beautiful as this individual,” she said. [Source]

Indeed, it is.

---

Follow Lorraine Devon Wilke on Twitter, Facebook and Rock+Paper+Music; for her archive at Addicting info click here; details and links to her other work: www.lorrainedevonwilke.com.

Pat Robertson: If You’re Bankrupt, Just Give Me $20 A Month

By Alan Colmes

Televangelist Pat Robertson will go easy in you if you’re broke.

He encouraged families who could not pay their bills to become “partners” of his ministry because “it’s just $20 a month.”

At the end of Monday’s 700 Club broadcast, Robertson told the story of D.L and Deborah Hobby, who “lived large” in a 4,600-square-foot home until the housing market crashed and their real estate business dried up.

After selling their home at a “huge loss,” the Hobbys declared Chapter 13 bankruptcy in 2010. The “defeated” family of four was forced to move into a 1,000-square-foot home.

“That is when we really started to focus on God,” D.L. Hobby recalled…

“Our finances have been restored because of him,” Deborah Hobby observed. “And I believe it was because of us continuing to tithe, and us putting God first in our lives.”

“They were faithful,” Robertson opined at the conclusion of the report. “Listen, there is no way you can out give God. You can’t do it. And that which is given to him will come back 30, 60 and 100 fold.”

“We encourage you to join the 700 Club,” the TV preacher added. “It’s just $20 a month. And if all of us do it together, it gets to be millions and millions and millions of dollars!”

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

Dig last updated on Mar. 18, 2013

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_last_letter_20130318/

Forget the Cellphone Fight — We Should Be Allowed to Unlock Everything We Own

By Kyle Wiens

While Congress is working on legislation to re-legalize cellphone unlocking, let’s acknowledge the real issue: The copyright laws that made unlocking illegal in the first place. Who owns our stuff? The answer used to be obvious. Now, with electronics integrated into just about everything we buy, the answer has changed.

We live in a digital age, and even the physical goods we buy are complex. Copyright is impacting more people than ever before because the line between hardware and software, physical and digital has blurred.

The issue goes beyond cellphone unlocking, because once we buy an object — any object — we should own it. We should be able to lift the hood, unlock it, modify it, repair it … without asking for permission from the manufacturer.

But we really don’t own our stuff anymore (at least not fully); the manufacturers do. Because modifying modern objects requires access to information: code, service manuals, error codes, and diagnostic tools. Modern cars are part horsepower, part high-powered computer. Microwave ovens are a combination of plastic and microcode. Silicon permeates and powers almost everything we own.

This is a property rights issue, and current copyright law gets it backwards, turning regular people — like students, researchers, and small business owners — into criminals. Fortune 500 telecom manufacturer Avaya, for example, is known for suing service companies, accusing them of violating copyright for simply using a password to log in to their phone systems. That’s right: typing in a password is considered “reproducing copyrighted material.”

Manufacturers have systematically used copyright in this manner over the past 20 years to limit our access to information. Technology has moved too fast for copyright laws to keep pace, so corporations have been exploiting the lag to create information monopolies at our expense and for their profit. After years of extensions and so-called improvements, copyright has turned Mickey Mouse into a monster who can never die.

It hasn’t always been that way. Copyright laws were originally designed to protect creativity and promote innovation. But now, they are doing exactly the opposite: They’re being used to keep independent shops from fixing new cars. They’re making it almost impossible for farmers to maintain their equipment. And, as we’ve seen in the past few weeks, they’re preventing regular people from unlocking their own cellphones.

This isn’t an issue that only affects the digerati; farmers are bearing the brunt as well. Kerry Adams, a family farmer in Santa Maria, California, recently bought two transplanter machines for north of $100,000 apiece. They broke down soon afterward, and he had to fly a factory technician out to fix them.

Because manufacturers have copyrighted the service manuals, local mechanics can’t fix modern equipment. And today’s equipment — packed with sensors and electronics — is too complex to repair without them. That’s a problem for farmers, who can’t afford to pay the dealer’s high maintenance fees for fickle equipment.

Adams gave up on getting his transplanters fixed; it was just too expensive to keep flying technicians out to his farm. Now, the two transplanters sit idle, and he can’t use them to support his farm and his family.

God may have made a farmer, but copyright law doesn’t let him make a living.

Neighborhood car mechanics also see copyright as a noose constricting their ability to fix problems. The error codes in your car? Protected. The diagnostic tools used to access them? Proprietary software.

New cars get more sophisticated every year, and mechanics need access to service information to stay in business. Under the cover of copyright law, auto companies have denied independent shops access to the diagnostic tools and service diagrams they need.

Mechanics aren’t taking it lying down. In September of last year, Massachusetts passed Right to Repair legislation designed to level the playing field between dealerships and independent repair shops. Under the rallying cry of “it’s your car, you should be able to repair it where you want,” voters passed the bill by a whopping 86 percent margin. The law circumvents copyright, requiring manufacturers to release all service information to Massachusetts car owners and service technicians.

The popular unrest is spreading: Legislators in Maine just introduced similar legislation.

Meanwhile, progress is being made to legalize cellphone unlocking. With grassroots groups leading the charge, the Obama administration announced its support for overturning the ban last week. Since then, members of Congress have authored no fewer than four bills to legalize unlocking.

This is a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough. Let’s make one thing clear: Fixing our cars, tractors, and cellphones should have nothing to do with copyright.

As long as Congress focuses on just unlocking cellphones, they’re missing the larger point. Senators could pass a hundred unlocking bills; five years from now large companies will find some other copyright claim to limit consumer choice. To really solve the problem, Congress must enact meaningful copyright reform. The potential economic benefits are significant, as free information creates jobs. Service information is freely available online for many smartphones from iFixit (my organization) and other websites. Not coincidentally, thousands of cellphone repair businesses have sprung up in recent years, using the repair knowledge to keep broken cellphones out of landfills.

As long as we’re limited in our ability to modify and repair things, copyright — for all objects — will discourage creativity. It will cost us money. It will cost us jobs. And it’s already costing us our freedom.

Kyle Wiens

Kyle Wiens is the co-founder and CEO of iFixit, an online repair community and parts retailer internationally renowned for their open source repair manuals and product teardowns. Launched out of his Cal Poly college dorm room in 2003, iFixit has now empowered upwards of 15 million people to repair their broken stuff.

No One in Washington DC Wants To Solve Our Economic Problems

By Nicole Belle

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

You know it's true, but let me be the one to commit to publishing it: No one in Washington DC wants to solve our economic problems.

Sure, it makes great fodder for the Sunday shows. They can have on Paul Ryan and legitimize him as a Very. Serious. Economic. Wonk.™ to discuss how we have to effectively kill Social Security (which is deficit neutral as anyone who understands the program well knows) to "save" it for future generations.

They can wring their hands over the unemployment rate as a way to blame President Obama, even though the private sector job growth has been positive for 24 straight months.

They can invite on those same politicians that authorized the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the Bush tax cuts and let them play concern troll over the deficit, as if history only started on January 2009.

They can frame the issue as one of sacrifice and 'skin in the game', ignoring that the wealthiest nation in the world has seen the wealth gap widen enormously, offering its riches only for a very few and that 98 percent of us are doing worse than they were before the collapse.

There is an economic crisis that exists in this country and there are some serious solutions designed to resolve them. But you won't hear about them, because they're coming from the marginalized Congressional Progressive Caucus:

The “Back to Work” Budget contains a $544 billion increase over current spending on public investments and job creation in the first year, including $75 billion for an infrastructure program, $155 billion for a public works program and aid to distressed communities, $80 billion for hiring teachers and $92 billion for reinstating the Making Work Pay tax credit. It also expands unemployment insurance, sends more money to the states and undoes the sequester cuts.

The CPC estimates this will create $7 million jobs in the first year—and over the next ten years, the budget would spend over $4 trillion more on job creation and public investments.

But this massive spending is offset by a number of crucial revenue measures: The “Back to Work” budget increases taxes on millionaires and billionaires, taxes investments at the same level as wages, closes corporate tax loopholes, enacts both a financial transactions tax and a carbon tax, and introduces both a public option and government negotiating for drug prices to Medicare. In addition, the budget finds savings by cutting Pentagon spending back to 2006 levels.

In short, they sketch out the opposite vision of Paul Ryan: reduced military spending, robust public investment and a strong safety net.

But this plan involves making sacrifices at the top and increasing revenue, so the Beltway has deemed this a less serious plan than Ryan's, even though it has the same odds of passing as Ryan's does. Steve Benen:

Earlier, I suggested that the Senate Democrats' plan offers a bookend to the House GOP plan, but upon further reflection, that's not quite right. Ryan aims for radicalism; Senate Dems aim for modesty. Ryan throws caution to the wind and laughs at calls for compromise; Senate Dems deliberately identify a moderate middle ground.

The actual bookend for Paul Ryan's vision is the Congressional Progressive Caucus' plan -- it's bold and unapologetic, presenting an agenda without real regard for whether folks on the other side of the aisle will find it worthwhile.

We'll never know for sure whether the public would be amenable to a vision like this. In fact, I have a strong hunch more than 99% of the population will never hear a single word about the "Back To Work Budget." But let's be clear about one thing: on Capitol Hill, when it comes to creating millions of jobs in a hurry, this is the only game in town.

And therein lies the problem: the solutions are there. Common sense solutions that will get us out of our economic rut and bring back prosperity to far more Americans than Ryan's budget will. But we'll only hear Ryan's plan. CPC members will not get invited on multiple Sunday shows to tout their vision. We'll only hear them ask for a grand bargain between the radicalism of Ryan and the center-middle milquetoast of the Murray Plan.

Because no one in Washington actually wants to find a solution.

About Nicole Belle

Mom, Wife, Media Critic/Political Analyst, Blogger, Austen Fanatic, Unapologetic Liberal NicoleBelle@crooksandliars.com

• Subscribe to Nicole Belle's feed

80,364,995 points on a single quarter in Missile Command

Man takes to Twitch.tv with the hope of scoring 100 million in the classic arcade game.

By Nathan Mattise - Mar 17 2013, 5:12 P.M. EDT

Here's the final scene Sandberg saw after 56 hours of domination.

Some numbers just stick out. Joe DiMaggio hit safely in 56 straight games. UCLA Men's Basketball won 88 in a row. And for the classic gaming niche, Victor Ali's 80,364,995 points on a single quarter in Missile Command looms just as large.

Today however, seemingly out of nowhere, a challenger rose up and dethroned the 30-year-old record live on Twitch.tv. Victor Sandberg, aka Twitch user diskborsteMC, played for more than 56 hours and surpassed 81 million points around 2:20 p.m. PST. Sandberg mentioned a desire to reach 100 million in total, but he ended with 81,796,035 total points. It's an effort that's more than good enough to unseat the previous high score.

And, let's answer the natural question, how does Sandberg play for so many hours straight without breaks? Apparently, he's been building up extra cities and allowing them to get destroyed whenever he needs to step away from the machine for a moment. Sandberg said he could theoretically take up to a 30 minute break with such a strategy, but prefers to use only four or six minute breaks instead.

Sandberg's Twitch page is relatively new, but it's filled with test streams of Missile Command play and his previous attempts at the record. Before this most recent event, Sandberg's best was 56,675,180 total points. It's important to note Sandberg is utilizing marathon settings rather than tournament settings for Missile Command, as the two records are kept separately. (Tournament play does not allow players to earn bonus cities, so the scores there are much lower. The record in tournament settings has not eclipsed five million.)

Sandberg's performance will need verification from Twin Galaxies, the arcade turned international scoreboard for classic gaming (featured in the documentary Chasing Ghosts). The organization still maintains the official record keeping and also outlines the proper settings players must use to attempt a record-breaking run.

Atari released Missile Command in 1980 and players have strived for the record ever since (check out this newspaper clipping of a 40-million-plus round in 1981). Record-seeking play is regarded highly enough that it's been the subject of multiple award-winning documentaries: King of Kong (about the battle for classic Donkey Kong supremacy) in 2007, and High Score about Missile Command bragging rights in 2006. If you are not familiar with Missile Command, check out some basic gameplay from Atari's arcade version below.

 

Sharpton pushes back against Snyder over Emergency Manager law

By Morgan Whitaker, @morganwinn

Rev. Al Sharpton and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder went head to head on Friday’s Morning Joe over Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law and Snyder’s recent takeover of Detroit under that law.

Acknowledging the poor condition of Detroit’s finances, Sharpton argued that Snyder “undermined the will of the voters” when he signed new emergency manager legislation into law only a few weeks after Michiganders repealed it in the November 2012 election.

 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Snyder’s defended the move, arguing the new law was different. “The old law went away, but we put in a new one that really was responsive to the issues that came up during that process,” he said.

He also pushed back against the criticism that by appointing an emergency manager, Snyder essentially became the only voter in Detroit, with full power to decide who leads it. “I’m also the elected official,” he said. “I was elected by the people of Michigan so there is an elected official responsible for this process and I think that’s critically important.”

Sharpton also brought up Pontiac’s experience with an emergency manager. In that town, manager Lou Schimmel has privatized and outsources many of the city’s services, decimated the public unions, reduced the public workforce by 90%, and sold the Silverdome arena for a fraction of its estimated value.

Snyder argued that mayors and cities in Pontiac and elsewhere are “still giving input” and involved with an ongoing process, although many elected leaders in those towns have argued the opposite, especially Pontiac’s City Councilman Donald Watkins, who said on Thursday’s PoliticsNation that the emergency manager law has led to “one man power corruption” which he calls “emergency mismanagement.”

Watch Donald Watkins on Thursday’s PoliticsNation.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rev. Charles Williams II, who leads the Michigan chapter of Sharpton’s civil rights organization, says the people of Detroit are ready to fight for their rights. “The mayors and the city council–they lose all of their power, and all of that power is quite frankly entrusted inside of the emergency manager,” he said. “There are certain ones who are sitting there who may still have their paycheck and they may in theory still have their power, but if the emergency manager has a gun to your head, there’s not much you can do.”

Williams, who led protests against the appointment on Thursday, said Snyder is “disenfranchising the vote and dismissing democracy in Michigan” by taking this action after the law was repealed, pointing to the more than 2 million voters who rejected the emergency manager law in November’s referendum.

“The people should decide [if elections matter], but they don’t want people to decide who chooses our president, who chooses our mayor, or our city council,” he said.

Williams also argued that the emergency manager laws are part of a broader voter suppression plan, in line with gerrymandering and voter ID laws. “This is part of the Republican scheme to continue to disenfranchise voters,” he said, calling it a “suppressive tactic.”

“We’re going to stand up and fight back we’re not going to allow our voices to be dismissed.”

Sanders: Economy Worse Than Obama Claims

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), with his statements about the economy, contradicts many of the soothsaying words of President Obama in recent addressing of the economy. ""Real unemployment ... it's not 7.7 percent; it is really over 14 percent," Sanders said during a Senate Budget Committee hearing yesterday. "Youth unemployment, a whole future generation, is today close to 25 percent. These are kids who are not getting their feet on the ground, not developing a career."

March 13, 2013

WASHINGTON, March 13 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today as the committee began hearings on a plan for the 2014 fiscal year that mixes tax increase with cuts to the Pentagon and domestic programs:

“The resolution that we will be debating in the Budget Committee today is a step in the right direction.

“At a time when the real unemployment rate is 14.3 percent, this budget resolution will put millions of Americans back to work in decent-paying jobs rebuilding our roads, bridges, dams, culverts, sewers, schools, and other infrastructure needs.  This is a step in the right direction, but I would do much more. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, we need to invest $2.2 trillion over the next five years just to get a passing grade on our infrastructure needs.

“At a time when corporate profits are at an all-time high and corporate revenue as a percentage of the economy is near an all-time low, this budget resolution begins to make sure that the most profitable corporations will contribute to deficit reduction. This budget resolution raises $975 billion in revenue over the next decade.  Altogether, 36 percent of the $4 trillion in deficit reduction achieved under this budget resolution would come from ending tax loopholes and increasing tax rates on the wealthy.  I would have gone much further by making sure that at least 50 percent of deficit reduction since 2010 was achieved by raising revenue from the wealthy and large corporations.

“At a time when the middle class is collapsing, poverty increasing and the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider, this budget resolution keeps the promises we have made to our seniors, veterans and the most vulnerable by protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid against benefit cuts.

“Let me be clear. The Senate resolution is much better than the budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. Unlike the House plan, the Senate resolution will not end Medicare as we know it.  Instead, it protects earned Medicare benefits for both current and future beneficiaries.

“Unlike the Ryan budget, the Senate resolution will not slash Pell grants by $80 billion or eliminate college grants for up to 1 million students.  Instead, it protects Pell grants for 9 million low-income college students.

“Unlike the Ryan budget, this Senate resolution will not kick up to 24 million Americans off of Medicaid.  Rather, it will protect Medicaid benefits.

“Unlike the Ryan budget, the Senate resolution will not repeal the Affordable Care Act and prevent over 30 million Americans from getting the health insurance they need.

“And unlike the Ryan budget, this Senate resolution will not provide a $7 trillion tax break that will primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations, paid for by increasing taxes on the middle class.”

Hypocrisy Alert: Anti-Marijuana Republican Rep. Steve Katz Caught With Marijuana

Since Republicans are all about state's rights, hypocrisy should also be on the state level.

By Michael Hayne

According to reports, Katz was initially pulled over on the New York Thruway for speeding. The trooper who pulled him over apparently detected the aroma of marijuana and proceeded to ask Katz if he had any pot in the car. At which point, Katz said “yes” and then handed over a bag of the magic stuff that contained less than 25 grams. The trooper didn’t suspect that Katz was driving while impaired–an assessment that has become more common in the wake of states legalizing small amounts of marijuana–so he just issued him for unlawful possession of marijuana – a non-criminal violation – and speeding. Under New York state law, the private possession of up to 25 grams of marijuana is a non-criminal civil citation, punishable by a $100 fine. But if only there were a penalty for hypocrisy.

“If there was a concern that he was smoking while driving, we would have brought in a drug recognition expert to determine if he was under the influence, but there was no indication that he was,” state police spokesman Sgt. Don Baker said. (NY Daily News)

But Katz, a committed hypocrite, isn’t going to let this otherwise massively humiliating and hypocritical experience impede his work of making the lives of his constituents miserable. Katz saw it fit to deny cancer patients and pain sufferers relief when he voted against a bill last year to legalize medical marijuana

“This should not overshadow the work I have done over the years for the public and my constituency,” Katz said. “I am confident that once the facts are presented that this will quickly be put to rest.”(NY Daily News)

If Congressman Anthony Weiner had to resign in shame after his wiener sowed up all of Twitter, then it only seems appropriate for Katz to be forced to resign. In the mean time, there should be an inquiry into whether Katz was truly under the influence and if the Trooper just let him slide because, unlike plebeians like you and me, he was a public official.

The plan to save the middle class & trim the deficit

It's budget time again in Washington. Ryan and company want to cut - cut - cut. Is this what's best for the economy?

We'll talk to Congressman Mark Pocan (D-WI, 2nd District) about the progressive plan to save the middle class AND trim the deficit.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 7pm and 9pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings.

Fox News VERY Upset That The Economy Is Recovering

By T. Steelman

Meanwhile, in Foxland, the conservatives who run the PR branch of the Republican party are busily building fantasy castles in the sky… As we have always suspected, the folks over at Fox “News” are not only ignoring the stock market’s several-day record-setting numbers, they are actively naysaying any recovery news.

Frequent Fox guest Caroline Heldman of Occidental College, appearing on Rev. Al Sharpton’s Politics Nation show Tuesday night, went so far as to say:

“I have never met a group of people who are so upset that the economy is rebounding than the folks over at Fox.

That’s right, among the lies they tell themselves (and their viewers) is that the stock market’s recent surge is unimportant. Sean Hannity, on whose show Heldman was appearing Monday night to talk about the recovery, was so upset he lost his head. In trying to make his point that the stock market boom was not a sign of recovery, he actually asked – rhetorically, of course, as he doesn’t really give a damn – “those people on food stamps, are they investing in the stock market?” Heldman replied that she was “impressed” that Hannity was concerned about the poor. With a healthy dose of sarcasm, one notes.

When she appeared on Rev. Sharpton’s show she was spot on with her analysis of the recovery, noting that this insistence upon denial could actually harm the recovery. She went on to say:

“I think that Sean Hannity is a perfectly likeable person. I happen to know that he tips 100% in his private life. I just wish that his public stances and the stances of Republicans didn’t go after the poor, the elderly, kids – with Pell Grant cuts, Medicaid cuts, job training cuts. You really do have to put your money where your mouth is.”

Well, that’s as may be. I’m not one to judge a person by only one aspect, that being the public face they turn to the world, but Sean Hannity has shown himself to be uncaring and cold when it comes to people not like him. That is to say: white, male, hetero and rich. As for his tipping well… I saw a few comments indicating that may not be completely true and even so, the only thing it really is, is a sign of insecurity and a need to impress. Since he claims to be a Christian, I will go by John’s “actions not words” yardstick. By that measure, Hannity falls far short.

Here’s video of Heldman’s appearnace on Politics Nation:

Scott Prouty - The man behind the 47% video

Scott Prouty, a bartender working during the Mitt Romney fundraiser, talks to Ed Schultz about why he’s coming forward about filming Mitt Romney making the “47%” statement, which changed the conversation during the 2012 elections.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Brooklyn protests over teen killed by NYPD reflect the complete lack of trust between the police and the community

Cenk Uygur talks with Michael Skolnik, GlobalGrind.com editor-in-chief, about how a Brooklyn vigil honoring 16-year-old Kimani Gray turned into a protest. Gray was shot and killed by undercover New York City detectives. Skolnik attended the protest, and he says major news reports calling participants thugs who turned violent is disrespectful.

“There were a lot of young people who were there … who were exercising their constitutional right to peacefully protest and assemble against the 67th precinct, who they think is responsible for killing their friend.”

Skolnik says that both Gray’s death and the resulting protest show that there’s no trust between New York City’s minority residents and the police force.

The Quickest, Easiest Destruction of a Conservative Pundit You'll See Today

Posted by Rude One

Tucker Carlson - that bow-tie wearing cockhole, one of the most purely stupid "thinkers" the right has produced in the last twenty years, belonging to the decent-face, dim-brain species that includes S.E. Cupp and Ben Domenech - now prances and preens with his internet concern, The Daily Caller, which is sort of like Huffington Post except with less side-boob and more full-on boob obsession.

Lately, The DC (see? Isn't that clever?) has been hawking the "story" of how Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez might have hired prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. The Washington Post did some, you know, reporting and discovered that one of the prostitutes was hired to read a script on video and lie to incriminate Menendez. The DC accused the Post of talking to "the wrong prostitute." Carlson himself spoke to the Post's Erik Wemple to say that the newspaper was wrong and Carlson's website's story was right. Wemple helpfully points out another part of the Post's story: "FBI agents conducting interviews in the Dominican Republic have found no evidence to back up the tipster’s allegations."

Today, we are not concerned with Menendez. No, today we are concerned with Tucker Carlson and the way that conservative allegations on anything skeevy that a Democrat may or may not have done automatically become articles of faith around the right-wing biosphere.

For we can take Carlson apart so easily on this matter it barely requires more than a Google search of "Tucker Carlson" and "David Vitter." In case the kids out there don't remember, Vitter is the Republicans senator from Louisiana who frequented prostitutes in New Orleans. He got reelected in 2010, post-scandal, precisely because conservatives like Carlson decided that, when it comes to their own, who gives a happy monkey fuck what they do, as long as they toe the ideological line.

In fact, let's let Carlson speak for himself, as he did on his then-MSNBC show Tucker, on July 11, 2007. It is an object lesson in how repulsive this bottom-feeding scum worm actually is. Remember: Vitter wasn't "accused" of whoring it up. He did it. And, believe it or not, even in New Orleans, that's illegal. Carlson, talking to Michael Rectenwald, the head of some fucking organization that released the names of public figures who visited the brothel of a certain madam, actually said, "How could you justify doing something like this? Why is it your business?"

Remember, again: Vitter, a Senator, broke the law. "I don‘t remember David Vitter making any case that people who frequent prostitutes ought to be punished more severely than they are," Carlson offered.

Remember, one more time: Carlson acknowledges that Vitter had sex with prostitutes, which is against the law. But still he could say, "I don‘t know anything about you other than you are holding up this guy‘s sex life to public ridicule. And you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

Now, all that is fine and dandy. We could stop there, having shown that Carlson is a hypocrite, of course, of course. But let's nail this coffin shut and toss it in the ocean with Carlson still alive inside. Let's show the true depths of delusion, the miasma of hypocrisy in which the right wallows.

Tucker Carlson, whose internet news outlet is unrelentingly pursuing Bob Menendez on whether or not he had sex with prostitutes, who proclaimed that David Vitter's actual sex with prostitutes was off-limits for discussion, said on July 11, 2007, on a program that bore his first name, "If this were [Democrat] Russ Feingold...I would be up there making the same argument that Russ Feingold's personal [life] ought to be off limits from creeps and scandal mongers like you...who profit from digging into other people's sex lives."

Annnd...scene.

Krugman To Obama: Stop Listening To The GOP, It’s The Economy, Not The Deficit, Stupid

By Egberto Willies

The President has fallen into the Republican trap: a false narrative that the biggest crises facing America are our national debt and our budget deficits.

Middle Class and Poor America must be climbing the walls. President Barack Obama ran a middle class centric campaign and won handily, and added to the Senate and the House.  Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s policies were soundly rejected. President Obama’s 2nd Inaugural Speech gave the impression that he would be presenting his version of FDR’s 2nd Bill Of Rights.

Instead, the president has fallen into the Republican trap: a false narrative that the biggest crises facing America are our national debt and our budget deficits. In fact, neither of these are insurmountable, nor do they need to be tackled now. The results of attempting austerity and debt reduction during recessions are clear. The United Kingdom and European Union countries that attempted this have depressed their economies further.

When one focuses on numbers and not emotions, clarity comes quickly. Paul Krugman’s New York Times article “Dwindling Deficit Disorder” needs to be read by our President. He should also pass it on to every Congressman and Senator.

Krugman states:

For three years and more, policy debate in Washington has been dominated by warnings about the dangers of budget deficits. A few lonely economists have tried from the beginning to point out that this fixation is all wrong, that deficit spending is actually appropriate in a depressed economy. But even though the deficit scolds have been wrong about everything so far — where are the soaring interest rates we were promised? — protests that we are having the wrong conversation have consistently fallen on deaf ears.

The fact that Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman along with economists like Joseph Stiglitz’ numbers and predictions over the years have been spot on while those “sanctioned” by Wall Street  (e.g., Peter Morici) have been steadily wrong speaks poorly of the media’s reporting and politician’s honesty or at best their knowledge.

Krugman continues explaining the realities of “public debt management”:

People still talk as if the deficit were exploding, as if the United States budget were on an unsustainable path; in fact, the deficit is falling more rapidly than it has for generations, it is already down to sustainable levels, and it is too small given the state of the economy.

Bear in mind that the budget doesn’t have to be balanced to put us on a fiscally sustainable path; all we need is a deficit small enough that debt grows more slowly than the economy. To take the classic example, America never did pay off the debt from World War II — in fact, our debt doubled in the 30 years that followed the war. But debt as a percentage of G.D.P. fell by three-quarters over the same period.

Yes, we’ll want to reduce deficits once the economy recovers, and there are gratifying signs that a solid recovery is finally under way. But unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, is still unacceptably high. “The boom, not the slump, is the time for austerity,” John Maynard Keynes declared many years ago. He was right — all you have to do is look at Europe to see the disastrous effects of austerity on weak economies. And this is still nothing like a boom.

Krugman acknowledges the structural problems that must be addressed with an aging population in the long term (but first, we need to assure a robust recovery).

There are, of course, longer-term fiscal issues: rising health costs and an aging population will put the budget under growing pressure over the course of the 2020s. But I have yet to see any coherent explanation of why these longer-run concerns should determine budget policy right now. And as I said, given the needs of the economy, the deficit is currently too small.

Krugman acknowledges that many are using the fear of the debt and deficit as an excuse to dismantle the social safety net:

Now, I’m aware that the facts about our dwindling deficit are unwelcome in many quarters. Fiscal fearmongering is a major industry inside the Beltway, especially among those looking for excuses to do what they really want, namely dismantle Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. People whose careers are heavily invested in the deficit-scold industry don’t want to let evidence undermine their scare tactics; as the deficit dwindles, we’re sure to encounter a blizzard of bogus numbers purporting to show that we’re still in some kind of fiscal crisis.

He finishes with the reality that must be broadcast loudly and often throughout the country.

The deficit is indeed dwindling, and the case for making the deficit a central policy concern, which was never very strong given low borrowing costs and high unemployment, has now completely vanished.

Many get upset when the President is accused of not leading. Most people who have made that accusation were rarely friends of the middle class, the poor, or of this President. The President has now been re-elected by a substantial margin. The policies he ran on are what most Americans want. These are not policies that can be considered the tyranny of the majority that need protection from Senate filibusters and obstructionists Republicans in the House (e.g., the majority pilfering the wealthy minority, the majority taking away rights of the minority). After-all, the converse is true.

With that said one must admit that if the debate is on the debt and deficits and not what ails the economy, the middle class, the poor, the students, the veterans, etc., then it is fact that the President is not using his bully pulpit to lead and to educate. It is true that the Right Wing echo chamber has polluted the body politic with misinformation as Krugman so aptly states. It is the President’s duty to now to begin the real fight against the damage inflicted on America by the Right. He is not leading on this issue. He has no more elections to be concerned about. It is time for him to pull his Party kicking and screaming if necessary to do the right thing.

• No cuts to Social Security. Raise the cap to ensure that the wealthy pays in more.
• Reform Medicare to prevent drug companies, hospitals, and specialists from pilfering the country’s coffers.
• Tax capital gains at the same rate as working people’s income.
• Remove all corporate tax breaks for companies that offshore and outsource American jobs.

This is not a tax the rich scheme. There are policies that acknowledge the structural income and wealth disparity built into our form of capitalism that can only be mitigated through policies that act as a damper to a structural defect. Is a teacher or professor worth orders of magnitude less than the broker or banker she taught? I cover much of this in my book “As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom”.

In 2011 when the discussion focused solely on the debt and deficits, it took the emergence of Occupy Wall Street to change the narrative. Income inequality and wealth disparity entered the lexicon. After an election where middle class, income, and wealth was likely uttered more than in the last 30+ years, it is incumbent that the President, his Party, the middle class, and the poor do not allow Republicans to change the narrative for their ultimate goal of destroying America’s social safety net. It may take a new Occupy style movement to peacefully march on the streets with resolve to demand that their will is effected.

Dick Cheney's Epic Fail

Maureen Dowd/Repent, Dick Cheney

Vice comes clean: He was the real president, and he stands by all of his mistakes

March 7, 2013 12:24 am

By Maureen Dowd

Dick Cheney certainly gives certainty a black eye.

In a documentary soon to appear on Showtime, "The World According to Dick Cheney," America's most powerful and destructive vice president woos history by growling yet again that he was right and everyone else was wrong.

R.J. Cutler, who has done documentaries on the Clinton campaign war room and Anna Wintour's Vogue war paint room, now chronicles Mr. Cheney's war boom.

"If I had to do it over again," the 72-year-old says chillingly of his reign of error, "I'd do it over in a minute."

Mr. Cheney, who came from a family of Wyoming Democrats, says his conservative bent was strengthened watching the anti-Vietnam War protests at the University of Wisconsin, where he was pursuing a doctorate and dodging the draft.

"I can remember the mime troupe meeting there and the guys that ran around in white sheets with the entrails of pigs, dripping blood," he said. Maybe if he'd paid more attention to the actual war, conducted with a phony casus belli in a country where we did not understand the culture, he wouldn't have propelled America into two more Vietnams.

The documentary doesn't get to the dark heart of the matter about the man with the new heart.

Did he change, after the shock to his body of so many heart procedures and the shock to his mind of 9/11? Or was he the same person, patiently playing the courtier, once code-named "Backseat" by the Secret Service, until he found the perfect oblivious frontman who would allow him to unleash his harebrained, dictatorial impulses?

Talking to Mr. Cutler in his deep headmaster's monotone, Mr. Cheney dispenses with the fig leaf of "we." He no longer feigns deference to W., whom he now disdains for favoring Condi over him in the second term and for not pardoning "Cheney's Cheney," Scooter Libby.

"I had a job to do," he said.

Continuing: "I got on the telephone with the president, who was in Florida, and told him not to be at one location where we could both be taken out." Mr. Cheney kept W. flying aimlessly in the air on 9/11 while he and Lynn left on a helicopter for a secure undisclosed location, leaving Washington in a bleak, scared silence, with no one reassuring the nation in those first terrifying hours.

"I gave the instructions that we'd authorize our pilots to take it out," he says, referring to the jet headed to Washington that crashed in a Pennsylvania field. He adds: "After I'd given the order, it was pretty quiet. Everybody had heard it, and it was obviously a significant moment."

This guy makes Al Haig look like a shrinking violet.

When they testified together before the 9/11 Commission, W. and Mr. Cheney kept up a pretense that in a previous call, the president had authorized the vice president to give a shoot-down order if needed. But the commission found "no documentary evidence for this call."

In his memoir, W. described feeling "blindsided" again and again. In this film, the blindsider is the eminence grise who was supposed to shore up the untested president. The documentary reveals the Iago lengths that Mr. Cheney went to in order to manipulate the unprepared Junior Bush. Vice had learned turf fighting from a maniacal master of the art, his mentor Donald Rumsfeld.

When he was supposed to be vetting vice presidential candidates, Mr. Cheney was actually demanding so much material from them that there was always something to pick on. He filled W.'s head with stories about conflicts between presidents and vice presidents sparked by the vice president's ambition, while protesting that he himself did not want the job.

In an unorthodox move, he ran the transition, hiring all his people, including Bush Senior's nemesis, Rummy, and sloughing off the Friends of George; then he gave himself an all-access pass.

He was always goosing up W.'s insecurities so he could take advantage of them. To make his crazy and appallingly costly detour from Osama to Saddam by cherry-picking his fake case for invading Iraq, he played on W.'s fear of being lampooned as a wimp, as his father had been.

But after Vice kept W. out of the loop on the Justice Department's rebellion against Mr. Cheney's illegal warrantless domestic spying program, the relationship was ruptured. It was too late to rein in the feverish vice president, except to tell him he couldn't bomb a nuclear plant in the Syrian desert.

"Condi was on the wrong side of all those issues," Mr. Cheney rumbled to Cutler.

Mr. Cheney still hearts waterboarding. "Are you going to trade the lives of a number of people because you want to preserve your honor?" he asked, his voice dripping with contempt.

"I don't lie awake at night thinking, gee, what are they going to say about me?" he sums up.

They're going to say you were a misguided powermonger who, in a paranoid spasm, led this nation into an unthinkable calamity. Sleep on that.

We have no business raising the retirement age for Medicare or Social Security

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, joins Cenk Uygur from Washington to discuss whether it’s likely that President Obama will cut Social Security and Medicare. “I want to trust the President mostly on this, but I also draw some lines too,” Brown says. “We have no business raising the retirement age for Medicare or Social Security. That’s a red line for me.”

Bob Ney attacks John Boehner

Former Ohio congressman Bob Ney is a convicted felon who is blowing the whistle on John Boehner's past. Ed Schultz spoke to Ney on his radio show today, and he spilled the beans on Boehner's relationships with special interest groups and more.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bill O’Reilly Screams ‘Bullshit’ At Alan Colmes, Apologizes

By David Pakman

It’s been a while since David Pakman’s had an O’Reilly segment, so here’s a clip from the “O’Reilly Factor” with Bill O’Reilly shouting down Alan Colmes. In this classic Fox News maneuver, the talk show host challenged his guest to identify any spending cuts that Barack Obama has made to government programs, then shouted the hapless guest down when he attempted to answer the question.

Colmes kept trying to say “Medicare and Medicaid,” but O’Reilly kept screaming at him and even yelled “Bull Shit!”

The next day, O’Reilly issued a standard non-apology … but only for saying a bad word, not for abusing his guests. But that’s okay, the event was pre-taped and obviously staged: O’Reilly and Colmes are obviously quite comfortable and friendly with each other.

60,000 Federal Workers Furloughed

By Alan Colmes

The workers are responsible for securing borders and facilitating trade.

Customs and Border Protection said it expects furloughs and other austerity will cause delays at ports of entry, including international arrivals at airports, and reduce the number of border patrol officers on duty at any one time.

David Aguilar, the agency’s deputy commissioner, said it must cut about $754 million by September 30, the end of the fiscal year.

It aims to reach that goal through agency-wide furloughs, a hiring freeze, and reducing or eliminating overtime, compensatory time, travel and training.