Remember this graph?

That’s the comparison of the Bush tax cuts and the Obama tax plan and, as you can see, the rich benefit dispraportionately under the Bush plan.  That’s the plan that conservadems like Mike Ross and Blanche Lincoln are fighting so hard for.  It’s the plan Republicans want to keep in place.  And you know how much it raises the deficit?  $36 billion, and that’s just for next year alone:

A Republican plan to extend tax cuts for the rich would add more than $36 billion to the federal deficit next year — and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation’s millionaires, according to a congressional analysis released Wednesday.

These are the same people who keep talking about how reducing the deficit is so important when it comes to things like health care reform and fighting the recession.  I keep going back to Krugman:

But Washington is providing only a trickle of help, and even that grudgingly. We must place priority on reducing the deficit, say Republicans and “centrist” Democrats. And then, virtually in the next breath, they declare that we must preserve tax cuts for the very affluent, at a budget cost of $700 billion over the next decade.

In effect, a large part of our political class is showing its priorities: given the choice between asking the richest 2 percent or so of Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid during the Clinton-era boom, or allowing the nation’s foundations to crumble — literally in the case of roads, figuratively in the case of education — they’re choosing the latter.

In other words, poor, working, and middle class Americans aren’t good enough to be priorities of conservatives in Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike.  But the rich and big corporations?  They’ll bend over backwards for them.  The deficit is just a convenient scape goat when they want to kick the majority of Americans to the curve.

About damn time someone got mad enough at the obstructionist to say what needed to be said:

That’s Congressman Anthony Weiner from New York standing up and fighting for the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, a bill that would have provided:

up to $7.4 billion in aid to the survivors of 9/11, including all the first responders who breathed in all manner of toxins in the aftermath of the attacks.

In the end the effort to pass the bill failed and Weiner’s truth telling failed on deaf ears, all thanks to Republicans and a few Blue Dogs, hiding, as Weiner said, behind the cowardly lies about amendments and process as they always do.  Seriously, how low are conservatives willing to sink?  Blocking assistance to the survivors of 9/11 is low-incredibly low.  What’s more, two members of the Arkansas delegation joined them…

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!  Remember when Mike Ross got his little award from the insurance companies for standing up for them in the health care debate?  Well, some of his constituents decided to beat Wall Street banks to the punch:

On Wednesday, July 7 citizens affiliated with Americans for Financial Reform and Arkansas Community Organizations delivered a “Wall Street Wonder Award” to Representative Mike Ross’ office at 100 E. 8^th Street in Pine Bluff at 2:30 PM in response to his vote against the House Financial Reform bill last week.  Members of the citizens’ group pointed out that Representative Ross voted for the Wall Street bailout and now has voted again in line with Wall Street lobbyists to oppose financial reform.

“Representative Ross has been consistent in his support for Wall Street from the $700 billion bailout in 2008 to his votes against Financial Reform.  Lobbyists for the big banks are spending more than $1 million per day to stop Financial Reform.  We are very disappointed that our Congressman chose Wall Street over Main Street,” said Maxine Nelson, chair of the West Side Community Organization in Pine Bluff.

“The Financial Reform bill that passed in the House is not perfect, but it provides many needed protections to consumers and safeguards for our economy.  For years many of us have fought to stop predatory lending practices.  Now we will have a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that can make rules to protect consumers in Arkansas and other states,” said Ms. Nelson.

“We call on our two senators to work hard to put Financial Reform across the finish line.  We don’t need to water down the bill.  We need to get the job done this month,” added Ms. Nelson.

The organization also handed out information about the impact of Financial Reform on small banks. 

Mike Ross is way out of touch with his constituents (not that his Republican opponent is any different mind you).  He stands up for corporate America, Wall Street, the big insurance companies, the big banks, etc. while his district is beyond the recession-it’s been in a depression for decades.  If ever there was a Democrat who needed to be run out in a primary, it’s him.

Recently, Mike Ross decided to pen an op-ed to roll call discussing health care reform. And, needless to say as this is Ross we’re talking about, the thing is so full of lies and misinformation that it’s only suitable as bird cage liner. Let’s take it apart piece by piece, shall we?

The health care reform process has been a never-ending odyssey of misunderstandings, miscalculations and misinterpretations. As a result, most Americans remain confused, scared, angry or all of the above. I believe the overwhelming disdain for incumbents we now see in this country is a resounding rejection of politics as usual, and, in particular, how both political parties have conducted themselves over the past year on this very important issue.

I suppose this includes his work to kill the public option, a piece of legislation far more popular than the bill as a whole? I suppose it includes his vote for the Stupak Amendment to limit the rights of women when it comes to reproductive health care while voting against the bill as a whole, right? Does that politics as usual bit include that illegal immigrant scare tactic he used after the vote, something that showed him to be nothing but a more subdued Joe Willson? Oh, it doesn’t? I see…

Every American understands that our health care system is broken on a fundamental level and needs change. In a capitalistic society, the universal principle of every business is profit. Without it, you don’t exist. Therefore, health insurance companies will do everything they can to make a profit. As a capitalist, my instinct is to defend a private company’s right to turn a profit and keep its doors open. However, when that profit comes at the expense of the lives and health of countless Americans, we are forced to evaluate the practical approach of pure ideology and conclude that it simply does not work in a debate about health care — and it never will.

One thing in this debate is clear: The status quo is simply not acceptable, nor is it sustainable. Next to making adequate health insurance coverage available for the uninsured and underinsured, the skyrocketing cost of health care in this country is the most pressing reason why we must act. We can never get our deficits under control or balance our budget again unless we can stop health care costs from rising at twice the rate of inflation. In the past eight years, premiums have grown four times faster than wages. And the first $900 those of us with insurance pay in premiums goes to cover the costs of treating the uninsured in emergency rooms across this country. Ensuring American citizens have quality health care and making it both affordable and accessible is key to the long-term strength of our economy.

He really is a shameless lying dog. Here he is saying we can’t allow the status quo to continue, but he’s fighting to preserve it. He lays out a list of indictments against our current system, but still fights reform tooth and nail. I’d call him a snake but it’d be an insult to snakes.

There are three ways we can fundamentally reform our health care system: insurance industry reforms, containing costs and affordability. First and foremost, we must reform the way the health insurance industry operates. Every family needs and deserves health insurance much like they require utilities to heat their homes, and our laws should regulate health insurance companies just as they regulate the utility companies today, including prohibitions on pre-existing conditions, canceling your coverage when you get sick and caps on the total amount they will pay for your health care expenses over a lifetime.

All of that is in this bill he’s voting against…

Secondly, we must explore every available cost-containment measure, and no proposal on Capitol Hill goes far enough in this arena. Every step possible must be taken to root out waste, fraud and abuse, and we need historic investments in preventive medicine, such as physical education in schools and early detection programs.

Actually, there is a proposal that would do great work to contain costs and would do so through that capitalist system of competition Ross so admires. It’s called the PUBLIC OPTION and he’s AGAINST IT.

Finally, we cannot and should not move from our current employer-based health care system, which is uniquely American. Instead, we must build on what we have, which most Americans like, and make it better. It should be more affordable for employers and more portable for employees. As a former small-business owner, I feel strongly that we must protect our small businesses — the backbone of the American economy. That is why I oppose employer mandates and why I support a “marketplace” that allows small businesses and the self-employed to come together as one big group, having greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage. This is how large companies and government employees, including Members of Congress, have access to affordable insurance, and I believe every American should have access to the same coverage I do.

Small business-fine and dandy. But big businesses like Wal-Mart should take care of their employees. Oh, and by the way, it would be nice if we could get the excellent coverage these guys in Congress have. Maybe instead of fighting to kill health care reform so hard Ross should be working to get us some sort of arrangement like he currently enjoys.

I feel strongly that a majority of Americans are ideologically in the middle, as am I, and I believe the middle is from where we should legislate. If there is one thing my hardworking parents and my small-town values have taught me throughout my life, it is that common sense must always rule the day. However remote, I look forward to that day on Capitol Hill.

That’s it? No indictment of the bill you’re opposing? No reason for him standing in the way of reform now that his insurance company buddies got their way and seemingly killed the public option? (There’s still a chance to bring it back in the future.) Talk about pathetic.

There’s really no room for doubt here. Mike Ross represents the worst in our politics, and not just because he’s a walking ethics issue or a poster child for why we need campaign finance reform. In this crap he’s peddling, he’s showing off a trait that is worse than any of that-his willingness to lie.

But there’s hope. Ross got off without a primary challenge this year, but there’s always the next cycle. That’s one of many reasons why it’s so important to hold Blanche Lincoln accountable and get Bill Halter elected. If that happens, it breaks open the gate and provides the first nail in the establishment’s coffin. Whenever I talk about that with regards to Ross I always get these shrugs and some remark about how entrenched he is. But there’s plenty of reason to take him on and, I’m convinced, a chance to replace him with a better Democrat.

President Obama had another excellent Q&A today, this time with Democratic Senators.  During the course of the event, he got a “question” from Wal-Mart’s own Senator Lincoln.  Let’s break her “question” down and the President’s response…

Let’s look at Lincoln’s first:

Me, neither, Mr. President. I stay away from the TVs and everything else.

Total bullshit.  (This was in response to something the President had said earlier about turning off the television…and blogs…)

But thank you so much for being here with us today. And I want to thank you also — I had an opportunity with several of my colleagues from the House and Senate to have a bipartisan meeting yesterday with the First Lady on childhood obesity. It was a great meeting and we look forward to working with her and you and your administration to really tackle that problem on behalf of our children and the future of our country.

Okay, that’s nice and all, but getting to the point was never Blanche’s strong point.

Mr. President, I come from a seventh-generation Arkansas family. My dad was a good Democrat, and he was a great Arkansan, and he was very typical of Arkansans in that he was very independent-minded, as am I, and as most of my constituents. And he used to tell me early on when I ran for Congress, he said it’s really results that count.

Really Blanche?  You who have stood in the way of Democrats, scratch that, of Congress getting any real results on much of anything over the course of more than a year have the audacity to say that?

And as I look at what’s going on in my state and among my constituents — I visited with a constituent yesterday, good Democrat, small business owner, who was extremely frustrated — extremely frustrated because there was a lack of certainty and predictability from his government for him to be able to run his businesses. He’s — he and his father have worked hard, they’ve built three or four different small businesses, and he fears that there’s no one in your administration that understands what it means to go to work on Monday and have to make a payroll on Friday. He wants results. He wants predictability.

Translation: Mr. President, I think your pinko commie policies are jeopardizing my reelection bid and I’d really prefer it if you just went back and did the things that President Bush and I supported in the past.  After all, you’re really not looking out for those mom and pop businesses like Wal-Mart, and Tyson Foods, and Blue Cross-Blue Sheild.

And I think that you’re exactly right. People out there watching us, they see us nothing more than Democrats and Republicans up here fighting, fighting only to win a few political points, not to get the problem solved. And so I just — I want to echo I guess some of what my colleague, Michael Bennet from Colorado, mentioned, but also to ask you, in terms of where we are going, what can we tell the people in terms of predictability and certainty in getting this economy back on track? How are we going to do that?

Why did she even bother asking that?  She’s just going to come out against anything and everything he says.  Is she just trying to get an idea how to best pull off tomorrow morning’s backstab?

And are we willing as Democrats not only to reach out to Republicans but to push back in our own party for people who want extremes, and look for the common ground that’s going to get us the success that we need not only for our constituents but for our country in this global community, in this global economy? Are we willing as Democrats to also push back on our own party and look for that common ground that we need to work with Republicans and to get the answers? And it’s really the results that are going to count to our constituents. And we appreciate the hard work that you put into it.

Translation:  Those awful librul’s are being mean to me!  They’re even trying to get someone to primary me!  They must be Marxists for wanting to do that!  Please Mr. President, it would help me politically if you’d say just the tiniest thing for me to throw in their faces, even though I’m still going to do everything I can to derail your radical, leftist agenda. (Remember, do what George Bush and I supported!)  And seriously, who do these radicals think they are!  All these workers, and people concerned about the air they breathe, and those damn sick people wanting health care!  Don’t they see that by denying workers’ rights, supporting polluters, and derailing meaningful health care reform that I’m pursuing a moderate, common sense agenda!

Now, for President Obama’s response…

Well, the — look, there’s no doubt that this past year has been an uncertain time for the American people, for businesses and for people employed by businesses. Some of that certainty just had to do with the objective reality of this economy entering into a freefall. So let’s just be — let’s remind ourselves that if you’ve got an economy suddenly contracting by 6 percent, or a loss of trillions of dollars of wealth basically in the blink of an eye, or home values descending by 20 percent, that that’s going to create a whole lot of uncertainty out there in the business environment and among families.

 And part of what we’ve done over the course of this year is to put a floor under people’s feet. That’s what the Recovery Act did. That’s what the interventions and the financial markets did. It broke the back of the recession, stabilized the markets. Nobody is talking about a market meltdown at this point. And people haven’t recovered all that they had lost in their 401(k)s, but they’re feeling a little better when they open that envelope now than they did six months ago. State budgets were in freefall; that was stabilized. States are still going through incredible pain, but they did not have to lay off teachers and firefighters and cops at the levels that they would have to otherwise lay them off. That provided some stability and some certainty.

 So the steps you’ve taken as a Congress, the steps we’ve taken as an administration, have helped to stabilize things.

Translation: Senator, you really don’t know what you’re talking about.

Now, moving forward, Blanche, what you’re going to hear from some folks is that the way to achieve even greater economic growth — and keep in mind the economy is now growing at a 6 percent clip, so the question is when do businesses actually start hiring, because they’re now making a profit — what you’re going to start hearing is the only way to provide stability is to go back and do what we’d been doing before the crisis.

 So I noticed yesterday when we were — there was some hearing about our proposal to provide additional financing to small businesses and tax credits to small businesses. Some of our friends on the other side of the aisle said, “This won’t help at all. What you have to do is to make sure that we continue the tax breaks for wealthiest Americans. That’s really what’s going to make a difference.”

 Well, if the agenda — if the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression — we don’t tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don’t put in place any insurance reforms, we don’t mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they’re doing now because we don’t want to stir up Wall Street — the result is going to be the same.

Translation: Tell your corporate financers to go jump off a bridge.  I am not going to use my Presidency to advance an agenda that was proven to be bad for America for eight long and miserable years so they’ll keep lining your campaign coffers and give you that cushy job when you lose your reelection bid.  Bottom line, I’m not going to let you and the Republicans take us over a cliff…again.

I don’t know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policies that got us into this fix in the first place. Michael Bennet articulated it very well. Part of the reason people are feeling anxious right now, it’s not just because of this current crisis — they’ve been going through this for 10 years. They’ve been working and not seeing a raise. Their costs have been going up, their spouses going to the workforce — they work as hard as they can. They’re barely keeping their heads above water. They’re trying to figure out how to retire. They’re seeing more and more of their costs on health care dumped in their lap. College tuition skyrockets.

 They are more and more vulnerable, and they have been for the last decade, treading water. And if our response ends up being, because we don’t want to — we don’t want to stir things up here, we’re just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don’t know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don’t know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.

Translation: Blanche, the reason you’re going to lose is because your constituents don’t think you care about them.  They think (or rather know) that you’re looking out for big business first and foremost, and that there’s no reason to vote for you.   And if Democrats follow your path it will insure we lose big in November, just like you’re set to do.

So the point I’m making — and Blanche is exactly right — we’ve got to be non-ideological about our approach to these things. We’ve got to make sure that our party understands that, like it or not, we have to have a financial system that is healthy and functioning, so we can’t be demonizing every bank out there. We’ve got to be the party of business, small business and large business, because they produce jobs. We’ve got to be in favor of competition and exports and trade. We don’t want to be looking backwards. We can’t just go back to the New Deal and try to grab all the same policies of the 1930s and think somehow they’d work in the 21st century.

I started to groan when he said this, and mark my words, if Lincoln does face a primary we’re going to hear this line again and again.  Still, the President shifted on it nicely, refusing to play into her hands.  Read on-

So Blanche is exactly right that sometimes we get ideologically bogged down. I just want to find out what works, and I know you do, too, and I know the people in Arkansas do, too. But when you’re talking to the folks in Arkansas you also have to remind them what works is not just going back and doing the same things that we were doing before. And, yes, there’s going to be some transition time. If we have a serious financial regulatory reform package, will the banks squawk? Yes. Will they say this is the reason we’re not lending? Yes. The problem is we know right now they’re not lending, and paying out big bonuses. And we know that the existing regulatory system doesn’t work.

 So we shouldn’t be spooked by this notion that, well, is now the time to take seriously in an intelligent way, not in a knee-jerk way, the challenge of financial regulatory reform so that you don’t have banks that are too big to fail and you’re not putting taxpayers at risk and you’re not putting the economy at risk — now is the time to do it.

 The same is true with health care. The same is true with health care. There are, I promise you, at least as many small businesses out there, if you talk to them, who will say, I just got my bill from my health insurance and it went up 40 percent. And we’ve got to do something for them. All right?

The President effectively attacked Lincoln’s implication that his agenda was in any way ideological.  He defended his agenda, and the Democratic agenda I might add, as being right for America, and he essentially told Lincoln to act like a Democrat and open her eyes to see that he was trying to do what’s right for the whole country, including Arkansas. (Not that Senator Lincoln really cares about Arkansas of course.)  And notice, he specifically rubbed her nose in health care, the issue she’s been a particular thorn in all our sides on.

Blanche bit off more than she could chew with this one.  I don’t know why she went in their with this fake “question”-this long winded, almost babbling, assertion that the President’s agenda is too far to the left and that he needs to move right while giving her ammunition to fire back at her critics.  I guess ultimately all she really proved is what we already know, that she has a real political tin ear.  And you know, as I watched Obama getting ready to respond to her I had to think that he was putting together the right words to tell her what he’s probably wanted to say to her for half a year now in the nicest way possible.  And then he just let her have it, in his typical nice, even handed, charming way.

Oh, and by the way, your’s truly is quite happy to be counted as an extremist element by Blanche Lincoln, and I will continue to work and fight for such radical causes as universal health care, workers’ rights, civil and human rights, protecting the environment, having a sensible foreign policy, and making sure that our economy works for everyone.  You know, all those Marxist notions…

Earlier I posted some thoughts on how progressives can win in Arkansas.  Now I’m posting something on WHY progressives HAVE to win.  Some of these videos have been on Blue Arkansas before, but they need to be shown again and again.

These are the people we’re fighting for. On the same day these people were standing in line for needed help, Blanche Lincoln was threatening to fillibuster the public option. Mike Ross had already done everything he could to derail reform, voting against the health care reform bill in the House after a lot of hard work trying to kill the public option. So much for conservative moral values and Jesus right?

These are the faces of the victims of an immoral and unworkable health care system that is leaving our economy to hemmorage. There are other faces out there-the farmer who’s way of earning a living is threatened by climate change that conservative Democrats and Republicans are ignoring; the gay teenager who strings himself up with a bed sheet because of homophobia that conservative Democrats and Republicans do nothing about or even encourage and take part in. To those that say conservatives are the only people that can win here, all I can say is this-not only are you wrong, you’re part of the problem. These people are the reason we’re fighting, they are the reason we will continue to fight, no matter what, and they are the reason we will win in the end, because the need is to great, the cause too important for us to fail.

(Credit goes to blogger nyceve for the videos.)

It’s been a long time since this was published, way back in 2005 when Democrats were trying to put themselves back together post 2004 disaster, but some of the talk in the comments got me thinking that it needed to be taken off the shelf, dusted off, and shared with people who hadn’t looked over it.

Now, I’m not David Sirota’s biggest fan by any stretch.  I think he has a lot of good ideas though, and his Democrats’ Da Vinci Code is probably his best.  To sum it up, Sirota basically lays out an alternative to the DLC and the Blue Dogs and the whole run to the right mentality, something that has never really gotten us anywhere.  What Sirota suggests, with ample evidence that it works, is for Democrats to focus on the economic issues of poor, working, and middle-class Americans, rather than the economic interests of corporations under the guise of centrism.  Sirota sums it up nicely:

Fight the Class War

If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, crying “class warfare” is the last refuge of wealthy elitists. Yet, inexplicably, this red herring emasculates Democrats in Washington. Every time pro–middle-class legislation is offered, Republicans berate it as class warfare. Worse, they get help from corporate factions within the Democratic Party itself.

But as countless examples show, progressives are making inroads into culturally conservative areas by talking about economic class. This is not the traditional (and often condescending) Democratic pandering about the need for a nanny government to provide for the masses. It is us-versus-them red meat, straight talk about how the system is working against ordinary Americans.

In Vermont, Representative Bernie Sanders, the House’s only independent and a self-described socialist, racks up big wins in the “Northeast Kingdom,” the rock-ribbed Republican region along the New Hampshire border. Far from the Birkenstock-wearing, liberal caricature of Vermont, the Kingdom is one of the most culturally conservative hotbeds in New England, the place that helped fuel the “Take Back Vermont” movement against gay civil unions.

Yet the pro-choice, pro–gay-rights Sanders’ economic stances help him bridge the cultural divide. In the 1990s, he was one of the most energetic opponents of the trade deals with China and Mexico that destroyed the local economy. In the Bush era, he highlighted the inequity of the White House’s soak-the-rich tax-cut plan by proposing to instead provide $300 tax-rebate checks to every man, woman, and child regardless of income (a version of Sanders’ rebate eventually became law). For his efforts, Sanders has been rewarded in GOP strongholds like Newport Town. While voters there backed George W. Bush and Republican Governor Jim Douglas in 2004, they also gave Sanders 68 percent of the vote.

Sanders’ strength among rural conservatives is not just a cult of personality; it is economic populism’s broader triumph over divisive social issues. In culturally conservative Derby, for instance, a first-time third-party candidate used a populist message to defeat a longtime Republican state representative who had become an icon of Vermont’s anti-gay movement.

The same message is working in conservative swaths of Oregon, where Democratic Representative Peter DeFazio keeps getting re-elected in a Bush district. For DeFazio, the focus is unfair trade deals and taxpayer giveaways to the wealthy. When Republicans promote plans to “save” Social Security, DeFazio counters not by agreeing with privatization but with his plan to force the wealthy to start paying more into the system.

The message is also used by Mississippi Congressman Gene Taylor, who represents a district that gave 65 percent of its vote to Bush in 2000 and was previously represented in the House by Trent Lott. Taylor bucks his district’s GOP tilt by mixing opposition to free trade with what the Almanac of American Politics calls “peppery populism” and a demeanor that is “feisty to the point of being belligerent.” “Unlike the policy hawks who never leave Washington … I know the owners of factories, the foreman, and the workers, and they’ll all tell you it’s because of NAFTA that their factories closed,” Taylor told newspapers in late 2003, criticizing the trade deal signed by President Bill Clinton.

This message contrasts with that of the DLC centrists, who promote, for instance, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh’s free-trade, Republican-lite positions as a model for winning in red states. What they don’t say is that Bayh comes from one of Indiana’s most beloved political families and wins largely by virtue of his last name, not his ideology. Where a corporate message like Bayh’s has been put to a real challenge, it has been a disaster. In Louisiana, for instance, the state’s tradition of electing Democratic populists like Huey and Russell Long gave way to centrist politicians like Senator John Breaux, a man best known in Washington for throwing Mardi Gras parties with business lobbyists. When a Breaux clone ran to replace the retiring senator, he was crushed by a moral crusading Republican.

In North Carolina, instead of following John Edwards’ class-based formula, Democrats anointed investment banker Erskine Bowles as the nominee to replace Edwards in 2004. At the time, party insiders brushed off concerns that, as a Clinton White House chief of staff, Bowles was an architect of the free-trade policy that helped eliminate North Carolina’s manufacturing jobs. But Bowles’ opponent, Representative Richard Burr, made the Democrat pay for his free-trade sellout. “You negotiated the China trade agreement for President Clinton, which is the largest exporter of jobs not just in North Carolina but in this country,” Burr said at one debate, robbing Bowles of an economic issue that might have offset North Carolinians’ inherent cultural suspicions of a Democrat. On election night, Bowles went down in flames.

As I said, it’s good stuff, and it’s something progressive Democrats can put to work here in Arkansas to be successful.  In fact, I’d argue that it’s the future of the Democratic party here.  As it stands, we seem to be looking into an abyss, and if conservatives continue on their route to push the party right, we’ll fall right into it (and they’ll of course blame us progressives in the process).

The best part is that the economic ideas that Sirota suggests Democrats should run on aren’t just good politically, they make good policy.  Fighting for small businesses against big corporations, protecting small farmers against big agribusiness, protecting the environment while appealing to sportsmen, going after white collar crime, making government honest and accountable, and using “the values prism” for something besides bigoted gay bashing would not only help us win here in the Natural State, when inacted as policy they would work to issue in change and renewal that are desperately needed.

The whole thing is worth a read, and it works as an effective counterargument to those that would suggest that only a right wing Democrat can win in states and districts like ours.

Now, as I’ve said in the past, I like Marion Berry.  I have no real problems with Marion Berry.  I’ve voted for Berry and supported him enthusiastically.  I don’t usually have much to complain about with him like I do Mike Ross.  But when someone is wrong they’re wrong, and I reserve the right to call them on it.

Take a gander at Berry’s interview with John Brummett.

There are a couple of lines I take particular contention with.  First, there’s this one-

What Berry related was that he and other Blue Dogs kept warning the White House that the big stimulus package enacted early last year wasn’t wise either as policy or politics unless it had offsetting spending reductions. These Blue Dogs kept sounding an alarm that this would be 1994 all over again, when Democrats lost their majorities in the mid-terms because Clinton had lurched left out of the presidential gate.

Basically, the Blue Dogs want to work towards balancing the budget and cutting spending in a recession…which is what Herbert Hoover tried…

According to Keynesian economics (which is the basis for economic practice in the United States), balancing budgets in recessions, especially severe ones like this one, is some bad juju.  Now that’s not to say we shouldn’t balance budgets-we should definately do so when we’re in better economic times like we were in the 90s.  Doing so now though would be a prescription for disaster.  That’s why so many progressives are worried about Obama’s proposed spending freeze right now-if it’s done when the economy is bad (and yes the President is waiting until 2011 to do it when, we hope, the economy will be better) then it will make a bad recession worse.

But what really gets me is this, and I don’t know whether this is really Berry’s thoughts or if Brummett is ad libing a bit here, but regardless it’s just plain stupid:

His compelling point is that the Blue Dogs were proven right — and by a state, Massachusetts, with nary a Blue Dog in sight.

They were right not only about holding the line on the deficit, but also about how health care reform could be done for less cost and in a simpler bill of 30 pages of so.

Berry himself has filed a bill in several congressional sessions to require that Medicare negotiate drug prices, permit prescription drug re-importation, let people over 55 buy into Medicare and protect pre-existing conditions from denial of coverage for those over 55 choosing to go into Medicare.

He’s wondering what would have been so wrong with going that route. He says optional Medicare at 55 at no expense to the government was popular until the mood got poisoned.

How the hell did Massachusetts prove that!?!?  Seriously, what exit poll has show that the Senate race there had ANYTHING to do with deficit spending?  If anything, that race proved that Democrats have a base problem and need to work to get their base out, that and avoid running crappy campaigns (like Blanche Lincoln is doing).  Seriously, dumbest thing said in Arkansas so far this year. I’m sure it will be topped though…

Secondly, isn’t it funny that Blue Dogs and other right wingers more or less shrug their shoulders at the idea of universal health care?  Sure expanding Medicare like Berry suggested is a great idea.  But you know what, there are plenty of people under 55 in desperate need of reform too.  I’m not willing to leave them to die for the sake of “fiscal responsibility”, especially since the Blue Dogs were never so keen on harping on that point when they were voting for the Bush tax cuts and the Iraq War funding bills that created this huge deficit in the first place and were far worse from a policy perspective and from a humanitarian perspective.

Oh, and you really can’t talk about how toxic the health care debate became without talking about conservative Democrats’ efforts to weaken the bill, namely killing the public option (a popular and effective part of the legislation).  Berry himself doesn’t deserve any blame for that, in fact I’ve said many times on here that he deserved praise for supporting the bill.  His cohorts are another story though.  Their foot dragging and mixed messaging on this bill have inflicted deep wounds on the Demcratic party, and these damn liars and hypocrites are happy to point their fingers at progressives and rush to lecture us that we need to just go along and accept things we don’t like or the party will lose.  Physician…heal thyself.  Seriously.  Oh, and shut the hell up while you’re at it.

Is there anything Blanche Lincoln doesn’t want to screw up!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) is joining forces with Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski in an effort to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases.