Democrats: Do not negotiate with hostage-takers!!

The decision for Democrats is stark but unequivocal. The Republicans are not negotiating. The GOP has boxed its party into a position of, "Do it my way or no way." The path for the Republicans is that they will not support raising the debt ceiling unless big Medicare cuts are part of the deal. That means gutting Medicare.

That also means that the Democrats needs to have guts and say "NO!"

TPM believes that a "Cornered Animal is A Dangerous Animal."

Public polling, the NY-26 outcome, and other objective indicators make it clear Republicans have boxed themselves into a political corner with their plan to end Medicare. It's a big problem for them politically, and there's no easy way out, especially since virtually every Republican in Congress is now on the record, with a vote, that they favor gutting Medicare.

So how are they gonna get out of this jam? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) just made it clear in a briefing with reporters on the Hill: They're going to hold the government's debt limit as hostage in order to back their way out of this political tight spot.

How? McConnell just announced he will not support raising the debt ceiling unless big Medicare cuts are part of the deal. Translation: Unless Democrats get us off the hook by agreeing to deep Medicare cuts (meaning Democrats can no longer attack Republicans for wanting to eliminate Medicare), then we're going to force the federal government into default on its debt.

What if McConnell extracted substantial other cuts from the White House to achieve the GOP's spending cuts goal? No matter, McConnell says. If Medicare cuts aren't part of the deal, then no dice on the debt ceiling -- U.S. economy and world financial system be damned.

It's as stark as that. And the decision for Democrats is equally stark: Do you negotiate with hostage-takers?

McConnell went so far to say that all negotiation is off the table. Medicare cuts must be part of that deal to get his support.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says substantial Medicare cuts must be part of a spending and deficit cut package to get his support to raise the debt limit.

In a Capitol briefing with reporters Friday, McConnell declared affirmatively that unspecified Medicare cuts are on the table in bipartisan debt limit negotiations, led by Vice President Joe Biden, and he expects they'll be part of the final deal. But in response to a question from TPM, he went further than he has in the past in laying down a marker on that issue. Medicare cuts must be part of that deal to get his support, he says -- even if negotiators manage to find trillions of dollars in savings elsewhere, even if his other priorities are met.

"To get my vote, for me, it's going to take short term [cuts, via spending caps]... Both medium and long-term, entitlements.," McConnell said. "Medicare will be part of the solution."

To clarify, I asked "[I]f [the Biden group] comes up with big cuts, trillions of dollars worth of cuts, but without substantially addressing Medicare, it won't get your vote?"

"Correct," McConnell said.

The question now is whether Democrats will be on board with this, or whether they'll try to call the GOP's bluff.

In response to TPM's report on Mitch McConnell's uncompromising position, Jon Summers, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) issued the following statement.

"Republicans are holding the United States' credit hostage to ram through their plan to end Medicare. They are now saying they won't accept any plan to reduce the deficit unless it also cuts Medicare. Voters have resoundingly rejected this ideological agenda. Republicans should drop it and move on."

Good response.! Let all Democrat politicians know to stand strong in their response to this Republican nonsense. The GOP debt reduction plan is nothing more than "a smoke screen obscuring a dangerous far-right agenda."

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, is waging radical class warfare and ideological privatization schemes and selling it as a debt reduction plan. His newly released FY12 budget proposal, The Path to Prosperity, ought to have the subtitle: "A Windfall For the Already Prosperous."

As Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research reminds us, the economic policies of the last three decades, by favoring corporations and the wealthy over average Americans, have achieved the world's most breathtaking upward redistribution of wealth. America's richest 1 percent are getting about $1.5 trillion richer each year. Studies also show that the richest 5 percent hold almost 64 percent of our wealth while and the bottom 80 percent of scrape by on just 12.8 percent of the pie.

Yet under the guise of debt reduction, the chairman of the House Budget Committee's budget proposal would take from the already poor, give to the already rich and attempt to achieve debt reduction not by cutting real costs, but by privatizing entitlement programs and shifting costs from the wealthy and corporations to struggling states, seniors, disabled, sick and low-income Americans. And the additional revenues necessary for serious debt reduction is glaringly absent, with proposals that would actually decrease tax-revenue from those most able to pay.

From start to finish, this budget is a smoke screen.

Will Republicans stop at Medicare and Medicaid?

This reverse-Robin Hood scheme cynically claims to "Strengthen the Social Safety Net," yet it eviscerates an already tattered net by privatizing Medicare and converting Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) from successful, guaranteed benefits programs to limited block grant programs.

It would devastate lives of the at least 44 million Americans living in poverty by slashing spending on critical human needs to below 2008 funding levels and freezing it there for 5 years. At the same time, it would boost the luxurious lifestyles of the tiny percentage of Americans who are genuinely rich by repealing estate and corporate taxes, slashing the income taxes the wealthiest among us pay and instituting a regressive national sales tax that would most likely increase tax obligations for poor, working-class, and middle-class Americans.

Even though this GOP FY12 Budget Resolution doesn't specify details of a plan to privatize Social Security, stay tuned. Privatizing Social Security is another essential piece of Ryan's (and the GOP's) dangerous agenda.

The GOP 's new mantra is that they have a plan to reduce the budget and the Democrats don't. But there are alternatives to the extreme measures the Republicans are all supporting. One answer is a single-payer Medicare system nation-wide.

Under Ryan's health care schemes, beneficiaries would increasingly bear the burden of soaring costs with no guarantee of receiving the remedies prescribed by their doctors. A better and fairer approach would expand the single-payer Medicare system nation-wide, achieving cost-savings, implementing real cost control and retaining guaranteed healthcare for all Americans.

The GOP is right about one thing: We should be serious about long-term debt reduction. Ryan's dangerous and seriously flawed scheme, however, is nothing more than an ideological ploy to shrink government programs that help poor and middle-class Americans while rewarding the already wealthy.

The moral of the story is: Do not negotiate with hostage-takers!!

The Republican Hopefuls?

The list of potential Republican candidates is shrinking in light of the recent announcements by political pundit Mike Huckabee and talk show host Donald Trump that they will not run for the office of the President in 2012. Rachel Maddow commented that many of the possible Republican candidates aren't viable other than Gov.Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) and Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN). Although Gov. Daniels has not even announced that he is a contender for the position, Maddow focused on Daniels and his social conservative policies.

To emphasis her point, especially to the men in the audience, Rachel equated preventative medicine with preventative maintenance. This was Rachel's way of bringing out the fact that Daniels has prevented all money in the state of Indiana to fund Planned Parenthood. This is Daniels' way to appeal to social conservatives. His actions have absolutely nothing to do with abortion, because abortions cannot be paid for with federal funds, The lack of funding realistically prevents any woman on medicaid from going to Planned Parenthood for any medical reason. It has to do with maintenance.

Rachel took to the man cave last night in an effort to explain to guys the real-world effects of Mr. Daniels' decision to pull all funding from Planned Parenthood:

"Every 3,000 miles, you know what I'm talking about, right? Every 3,000 miles, oil change. Every 6,000 miles, rotate your tires. At a certain number of miles, you check the brakes, you check the differential maybe the spark plugs you can check at home depending on your skill level.

"But when it comes to getting an alignment, rebalancing your wheels and all that stuff, basically speaking, you take it in. Not because there's anything wrong with your vehicle, fellows. It's just preventive maintenance. Preventive maintenance, Planned Parenthood Oil change, breast exam. Rotate your tires -- can I say pap smears on TV?

"Imagine that Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana is the fleet manager of, say, 9,000 cars in the state of Indiana. And he's just decided that those cars -- no more oil changes, no more checking the spark plugs, no more tire rotations, no more preventive maintenance.

"There are more than 9,000 people in Indiana whose health insurance is Medicaid, and who get their preventive care, who get their 3,000-mile check ups at Planned Parenthood.

"Because Mitch Daniels can mess with that as a governor and because he wants social conservatives to like him for president, those 9,000 Indiana patients have just been cut off from their preventive care. Breast exams, STD screenings, pap smears, birth control, all of it. This is not about abortion. There's not any public funding for abortion. It's not about cutting off abortion services in Indiana.

"This is about cutting off the proverbial oil changes, preventive care. If you want to be irresponsible with your vehicle, if you want to be penny wise and pound foolish, you stop going to Jiffy Lube, stop doing any preventive maintenance on your car. When your car inevitably breaks down, you will know why it happened."

Watch the entire episode. The first part deals with the field of potential Republican contenders. The information about Gov Daniels begins at about 7:30. The man cave moment begins at about 10:30. WATCH:

Michelle Bachmann's Inner Marxist

Yasha Levine says that Rep. Michelle Bachmann [R-MN], the anti-government tea-bagger queen, is really a Welfare Queen.....Oh My!!!!

Government handouts in the form of a farming subsidy

Michele Bachmann has become well known for her anti-government tea-bagger antics, protesting health care reform and every other government “handout” as socialism. What her followers probably don’t know is that Rep. Bachmann is, to use that anti-government slur, something of a welfare queen. That’s right, the anti-government insurrectionist has taken more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts thanks to corrupt farming subsidies she has been collecting for at least a decade.

And she’s not the only one who has been padding her bank account with taxpayer money.

Attempted socialist takeover of America vs. profiting from taxpayer largesse

Bachmann, of Minnesota, has spent much of this year agitating against health care reform, whipping up the so-called tea-baggers with stories of death panels and rationed health care. She has called for a revolution against what she sees as Barack Obama’s attempted socialist takeover of America, saying presidential policy is “reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom.”

But data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with profiting from taxpayer largesse. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann’s recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized—or “socialized”—businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls. These subsidies are at the heart of America’s bizarre planned agricultural economy and as far away from Michele Bachmann’s free-market dream world as Cuba’s free medical system. If American farms such as hers were forced to compete in the global free market, they would collapse.

Confused on the issues: She receives a farm subsidy and government medical benefits, but voted NO on foreclosure relief and health care legislation

However, Bachmann doesn’t think other Americans should benefit from such protection and assistance. She voted against every foreclosure relief bill aimed at helping average homeowners (despite the fact that her district had the highest foreclosure rate in Minnesota), saying that bailing out homeowners would be “rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules.” That’s right, the subsidy queen wants the rest of us to be responsible.

Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate that her personal stake in the family farm is worth up to $250,000. They also show that she has been earning income from the farm business, and that the income grew in just a few years from $2,000 to as much as $50,000 for 2008. This has provided her with a second government-subsidized income to go with her job as a government-paid congresswoman who makes $174,000 per year (in addition to having top-notch government medical benefits). “If she has an interest in a farm getting federal subsidy payments, she is benefiting from them,” Sandra Schubert, director of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, told Gannett News Service in 2007, when the subsidies to Bachmann were first publicly disclosed.

Not the only politician on the public dole

But Bachmann isn’t the only welfare recipient on Capitol Hill. As it turns out, there is a filthy-rich class of absentee farmers—both in and out of Congress—who demand free-market rules by day and collect their government welfare checks in the mail at night, payments that subsidize businesses that otherwise would fail. Over the past couple of decades, welfare for the super-wealthy seems to be the only kind of welfare our society tolerates.

In the 11 years for which the Environmental Working Group has compiled data, the federal government paid out a total of $178 billion to American farmers. We’re not talking about the Joads here. The bulk of subsidies go to the wealthy, not small farmers, as Ken Cook, the group’s president, explained to the Central Valley (Calif.) Business Times:

American taxpayers have been writing farm subsidy checks to wealthy absentee land owners, state prison systems, universities, public corporations, and very large, well-heeled farm business operations without the government so much as asking the beneficiaries if they need our money. ... Even if you live smack in the middle of a big city, type in a ZIP code and you’ll find farm subsidy recipients.

Sen. Chuck Grassley [R-IA]

Chuck Grassley, the longtime Republican senator from Iowa who warns his constituents of Obama’s “trend toward socialism,” has seen his family collect $1 million in federal handouts over an 11-year period, with Grassley’s son receiving $699,248 and the senator himself pocketing $238,974. Even Grassley’s grandson is learning to ride through life on training wheels, snagging $5,964 in 2005 and $2,363 in 2006. In the Grassley family they learn early how to enjoy other people’s money.

Sen. Grassley railed against government intervention in the health care market, telling The Washington Times, “Whenever the government does more ... that’s a movement toward socialism.” As the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, he ought to know, especially because the government has done more for him and his kin than for Americans struggling with high medical bills and mortgages. Even the free-market think tank the Heritage Foundation criticized Grassley on his deep connections to farming interests and his stubborn lack of transparency.

Sen. Sam Brownback, [R-KN]

Then there’s Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., whose family has been on the government take for at least the past 11 years, pocketing some $500,000. The senator recently held a “prayercast” with Michele Bachmann to beseech God to kill health care reform as soon as possible because it would bring an evil socialist spirit into America. Like Bachmann, Brownback has a fierce belief in God, the free market and a two-year limit on all welfare benefits—unless it’s welfare to rich Republicans who don’t need it.

Blue Dog, Sen. Max Baucus [D-MN]

Not surprisingly, Blue Dog Democrats are on board with this welfare-for-the-rich thing. Max Baucus, the fiscally conservative Democratic senator from Montana who did his best to sabotage the health care reform process before it ever began, collected $250,000 in taxpayer subsidies to his family’s farm while fighting to keep Americans at the mercy of free-market health insurance.

Blue Dog, Sen. Blanche Lincoln [D-AK]

Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, another Democrat, also helped hold the line against so-called socialized medicine for Americans who need assistance, even though her family farm business follows the socialized subsidy playbook to a T. The Lincolns pocketed $715,000 in farm subsidies over a 10-year period, and the senator even admitted to using $10,000 of it as petty cash in 2007.

Conservative Dem, Rep. Stephanie Sandlin [D-SD]

Democratic Rep. Stephanie Sandlin of South Dakota stayed true to her conservative free-market roots by voting against the public option. Meanwhile, her daddy, Lars Herseth, a former South Dakota legislator, collected a welfare jackpot of $844,725 paid out between 1995 and 2006.

Profit off taxpayers while denying voters

That’s just the way the game is played these days. Republicans and conservative Democrats bitch and moan about the allegedly Marxist underpinnings of universal health care and do everything they can to deny struggling Americans access to social services. Meanwhile, many of them profit off taxpayers in a massive welfare program.

Farm subsidies have become so corrupt that payments sometimes go to dead people for years. Federal farm subsidies, which were originally meant to help struggling farmers survive, are now little more than taxpayer robbery, taking taxpayer wealth from working Americans and sending it to the have-mores. According to 11 years’ worth of Environmental Working Group data that tracks $200 billion in subsidies, the wealthiest 10 percent of “farmers” have collected 75 percent of the money. That’s exactly the kind of socialism that Rep. Bachmann and her elite ilk like.

This line of thinking falls in with the conservative worldview, of the strict father model as explained by George Lakoff.

The conservative worldview, the strict father model, assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, tells his wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from wrong. The only way to do that is through painful discipline - physical punishment that by adulthood will become internal discipline. The good people are the disciplined people. Once grown, the self-reliant, disciplined children are on their own. Those children who remain dependent (who were spoiled, overly willful, or recalcitrant) should be forced to undergo further discipline or be cut free with no support to face the discipline of the outside world.

While, the progressive worldview is modeled on a nurturant parent family. Briefly, it assumes that the world is basically good and can be made better and that one must work toward that. Children are born good; parents can make them better. Nurturing involves empathy, and the responsibility to take care of oneself and others for whom we are responsible. On a larger scale, specific policies follow, such as governmental protection in form of a social safety net and government regulation, universal education (to ensure competence, fairness), civil liberties and equal treatment (fairness and freedom), accountability (derived from trust), public service (from responsibility), open government (from open communication), and the promotion of an economy that benefits all and functions to promote these values, which are traditional progressive values in American politics.

Michelle Bachmann applies the conservative worldview for everyone else but really likes the social safety nets of the government, provided by the progressive worldview, for herself and her family. The motto of the Republican/Tea Party seems to be focused on 'don't do as I do, just do as I say.'

Like-Minded Vile Rhetoric.

Interesting article by Steve Benen, about Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) raising the "Prospect of 'Revolution'".

One of these days, it sure would be nice if Republicans felt the need to denounce this kind of radical, vile rhetoric.

At a town hall Wednesday night, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) told constituents, "We're almost reaching a revolution in this country."

Inhofe also said he doesn't need to know what's in a health care reform bill to vote against it.

"I don't have to read it, or know what's in it. I'm going to oppose it anyways," he said at the event in Chickasha, Okla.

The senator was in good company, with most of the audience agreeing with him and expressing their disdain for big government and Democrats. One man said, "No more compromise. We're losing our country."

I can't begin to understand why Inhofe and his like-minded extremists are so angry. But for an elected member of the United States Senate to speak publicly about the possibility of a "revolution" is deeply frightening.

What's more, let's not forget that Inhofe isn't the only one throwing around insane rhetoric like this. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has encouraged her supporters to "rise up" and be "armed and dangerous." Several GOP lawmakers are talking up the idea of "nullification," which is effectively secession-lite. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's former press secretary recently wrote about "the coming revolution," which he suggested might be similar to "Project Mayhem" from the movie "Fight Club." (In the film, "Project Mayhem" involved militarizing terrorist cells that blew up banks.)

Inhofe is a U.S. senator, and he's decided to fan the flames.

I'm reminded of something Josh Marshall wrote a few weeks ago: "[L]et's all collectively throw a little cold water on our faces and just realize that this is some really crazy stuff. The health care debate is now being driven by a perverse nonsense feedback loop in which the Palin/Limbaugh crowd says all sorts of completely insane lies, gets a lot of ... how shall we put it, impressionable people totally jacked up

over a bunch of complete nonsense."

It's getting worse, the perverse nonsense feedback loop is getting louder, and elected members of Congress are dues-paying members the Palin/Limbaugh crowd.

It was just a couple of years ago when prominent conservatives told us criticism of the president and the United States government in the midst of a crisis was borderline, if not outright, treason. The love-it-or-leave-it crowd, after just seven months of a Democratic administration, has reached a very different conclusion about standards of patriotism in the 21st century.

Simply Unacceptable!!!

Republican politicking continues to put the whole nation at risk.

Despite being nominated nearly two months ago, the confirmation of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for HHS Secretary has been blocked by Republican Senators seeking to curry favor with extremist outside groups.

Her nomination is being held up at the behest of pro-life organizations who want to paint her as the "Abortion Queen." The hold up is pointless - merely delaying the inevitable for "another week." Maybe the swine flu would be good enough to wait!

This is simply unacceptable.