Ralph Reed was the head of the Christian Coalition. He was a major player in the 1994 Republican took-over of Congress. Then the Jack Abramhoff scandal broke. Abramhoff went to prison and Reed went into hiding for his well-documented association with the corrupt lobbyist.

Now Reed is back to fight against health care reform.

Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer has the story.

As the future of health care reform seems to be coming down to the very last wire, the high-stakes political battle seems to be drawing out of the woodwork long lost activists and groups once associated with the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramhoff. Yesterday we noted the participation of the National Center for Public Policy Research, which has put out some slick new campaign materials for health care opponents. That group was accused of flacking for Abramhoff clients in exchange for big donations. Today comes none other than Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader who helped Republicans take over Congress in 1994 but then crashed and burned after revelations about his work for Abramhoff. (Reed famously took millions from an Indian tribe represented by Abramhoff to run a religious-based anti-gambling campaign that was actually designed to prevent a rival tribe from opening a competing casino.)

Read entire story on Mother Jones

Watching the conservative echo chamber in action is a frightening experience that most people don’t have to stomach on a daily basis.

The latest misinformation parroted by the rightwing machinery is that President Obama is buying votes on health care with judicial nominations.

As usual, it all starts with just a simple question. This time the ultra-conservative Weekly Standard got the ball rolling.

Read the entire story on Examiner.com

Politico broke a scary story today. They’ve un-earthed a PowerPoint slideshow detailing the GOP strategy to use fear and mockery to stop Obama’s “socialist” agenda. It includes pictures of the president as the Joker, House Leader Nancy Pelosi as Cruella DeVille and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as Scooby Doo.

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to “save the country from trending toward socialism.”

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

Read the entire story on Politico

President Obama announced today that it’s time to get health care reform done. He didn’t mention reconciliation directly, but that’s what Obama wants.

Here’s the complete transcript and video of Obama’s speech today. The video and transcript were provided by the White House.

Remarks by the President on Health Care Reform
East Room

1:50 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much, all of you, for joining us today. And I want to thank Julie, Barbara, Roland, Stephen, Renee, and Christopher, standing behind me — physicians, physicians assistants, and nurses who understand how important it is for us to make much needed changes in our health care system.

I want to thank all of you who are here today. I want to specially recognize two people who have been working tirelessly on that — on this effort, my Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius — (applause) — as well as our quarterback for health reform out of the White House, Nancy-Ann DeParle. (Applause.)

We began our push to reform health insurance last March, in this room, with doctors and nurses who know the system best. And so it’s fitting to be joined by all of you as we bring this journey to a close.

Last Thursday, I spent seven hours at a summit where Democrats and Republicans engaged in a public and very substantive discussion about health care. This meeting capped off a debate that began with a similar summit nearly one year ago. And since then, every idea has been put on the table. Every argument has been made. Everything there is to say about health care has been said — (laughter) — and just about everybody has said it. (Laughter.) So now is the time to make a decision about how to finally reform health care so that it works, not just for the insurance companies, but for America’s families and America’s businesses.

Now, where both sides say they agree is that the status quo is not working for the American people. Health insurance is becoming more expensive by the day. Families can’t afford it. Businesses can’t afford it. The federal government can’t afford it. Smaller businesses and individuals who don’t get coverage at work are squeezed especially hard. And insurance companies freely ration health care based on who’s sick and who’s healthy; who can pay and who can’t. That’s the status quo. That’s the system we have right now.

Democrats and Republicans agree that this is a serious problem for America. And we agree that if we do nothing -– if we throw up our hands and walk away -– it’s a problem that will only grow worse. Nobody disputes that. More Americans will lose their family’s health insurance if they switch jobs or lose their job. More small businesses will be forced to choose between health care and hiring. More insurance companies will deny people coverage who have preexisting conditions, or they’ll drop people’s coverage when they get sick and need it most. And the rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid will sink our government deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. On all of this we agree.
So the question is, what do we do about it?

On one end of the spectrum, there are some who’ve suggested scrapping our system of private insurance and replacing it with a government-run health care system. And though many other countries have such a system, in America it would be neither practical nor realistic.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are those, and this includes most Republicans in Congress, who believe the answer is to loosen regulations on the insurance industry — whether it’s state consumer protections or minimum standards for the kind of insurance they can sell. The argument is, is that that will somehow lower costs. I disagree with that approach. I’m concerned that this would only give the insurance industry even freer rein to raise premiums and deny care.

So I don’t believe we should give government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America. I believe it’s time to give the American people more control over their health care and their health insurance. I don’t believe we can afford to leave life-and-death decisions about health care to the discretion of insurance company executives alone. I believe that doctors and nurses and physician assistants like the ones in this room should be free to decide what’s best for their patients. (Applause.)

Now, the proposal I put forward gives Americans more control over their health insurance and their health care by holding insurance companies more accountable. It builds on the current system where most Americans get their health insurance from their employer. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. I can tell you as the father of two young girls, I would not want any plan that interferes with the relationship between a family and their doctor.

Essentially, my proposal would change three things about the current health care system. First, it would end the worst practices of insurance companies. No longer would they be able to deny your coverage because of a preexisting condition. No longer would they be able to drop your coverage because you got sick. No longer would they be able to force you to pay unlimited amounts of money out of your own pocket. No longer would they be able to arbitrarily and massively raise premiums like Anthem Blue Cross recently tried to do in California — up to 39 percent increases in one year in the individual market. Those practices would end.

Second, my proposal would give uninsured individuals and small business owners the same kind of choice of private health insurance that members of Congress get for themselves — because if it’s good enough for members of Congress, it’s good enough for the people who pay their salaries. (Applause.)

The reason federal employees get a good deal on health insurance is that we all participate in an insurance market where insurance companies give better coverage and better rates, because they get more customers. It’s an idea that many Republicans have embraced in the past, before politics intruded.
And my proposal says that if you still can’t afford the insurance in this new marketplace, even though it’s going to provide better deals for people than they can get right now in the individual marketplace, then we’ll offer you tax credits to do so — tax credits that add up to the largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history. After all, the wealthiest among us can already buy the best insurance there is, and the least well off are able to get coverage through Medicaid. So it’s the middle class that gets squeezed, and that’s who we have to help.
Now, it is absolutely true that all of this will cost some money — about $100 billion per year. But most of this comes from the nearly $2 trillion a year that America already spends on health care — but a lot of it is not spent wisely. A lot of that money is being wasted or spent badly. So within this plan, we’re going to make sure the dollars we spend go towards making insurance more affordable and more secure. We’re going to eliminate wasteful taxpayer subsidies that currently go to insurance and pharmaceutical companies; set a new fee on insurance companies that stand to gain a lot of money and a lot of profits as millions of Americans are able to buy insurance; and we’re going to make sure that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share on Medicare.

The bottom line is our proposal is paid for. And all the new money generated in this plan goes back to small businesses and middle-class families who can’t afford health insurance. It would also lower prescription drug prices for seniors. And it would help train new doctors and nurses and physician assistants to provide care for American families.

Finally, my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions — families, businesses, and the federal government. We have now incorporated most of the serious ideas from across the political spectrum about how to contain the rising cost of health care — ideas that go after the waste and abuse in our system, especially in programs like Medicare. But we do this while protecting Medicare benefits, and extending the financial stability of the program by nearly a decade.

Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people’s premiums and brings down our deficit by up to a trillion dollars over the next two decades — brings down our deficit. Those aren’t my numbers; those are the savings determined by the Congressional Budget Office, which is the Washington acronym for the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress in terms of how much stuff costs. (Laughter.)

So that’s our proposal. This is where we’ve ended up. It’s an approach that has been debated and changed and I believe improved over the last year. It incorporates the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans — including some of the ideas that Republicans offered during the health care summit, like funding state grants on medical malpractice reform, and curbing waste and fraud and abuse in the health care system. My proposal also gets rid of many of the provisions that had no place in health care reform — provisions that were more about winning individual votes in Congress than improving health care for all Americans.

Now, despite all that we agree on and all the Republican ideas we’ve incorporated, many — probably most — Republicans in Congress just have a fundamental disagreement over whether we should have more or less oversight of insurance companies. And if they truly believe that less regulation would lead to higher quality, more affordable health insurance, then they should vote against the proposal I’ve put forward.

Now, some also believe that we should, instead of doing what I’m proposing, pursue a piecemeal approach to health insurance reform, where we tinker around the edges of this challenge for the next few years. Even those who acknowledge the problem of the uninsured say we just can’t afford to help them right now — which is why the Republican proposal only covers 3 million uninsured Americans while we cover over 31 million.

The problem with that approach is that unless everyone has access to affordable coverage, you can’t prevent insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions; you can’t limit the amount families are forced to pay out of their own pockets. The insurance reforms rest on everybody having access to coverage. And you also don’t do anything about the fact that taxpayers currently end up subsidizing the uninsured when they’re forced to go to the emergency room for care, to the tune of about a thousand bucks per family. You can’t get those savings if those people are still going to the emergency room. So the fact is, health reform only works if you take care of all of these problems at once.

Now, both during and after last week’s summit, Republicans in Congress insisted that the only acceptable course on health care reform is to start over. But given these honest and substantial differences between the parties about the need to regulate the insurance industry and the need to help millions of middle-class families get insurance, I don’t see how another year of negotiations would help.

Moreover, the insurance companies aren’t starting over. They’re continuing to raise premiums and deny coverage as we speak. For us to start over now could simply lead to delay that could last for another decade, or even more. The American people, and the U.S. economy, just can’t wait that long. So, no matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform. (Applause.)

We have debated this issue thoroughly, not just for the past year but for decades. Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of 60 votes. And now it deserves the same kind of up or down vote that was cast on welfare reform, that was cast on the Children’s Health Insurance Program, that was used for COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and, by the way, for both Bush tax cuts — all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.

I, therefore, ask leaders in both houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks. From now until then, I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform. (Applause.) And I urge every American who wants this reform to make their voice heard as well — every family, every business, every patient, every doctor, every nurse, every physician’s assistant. Make your voice heard.

This has been a long and wrenching debate. It has stoked great passions among the American people and their representatives. And that’s because health care is a difficult issue. It is a complicated issue. If it was easy, it would have been solved long ago. As all of you know from experience, health care can literally be an issue of life or death. And as a result, it easily lends itself to demagoguery and political gamesmanship, and misrepresentation and misunderstanding.

But that’s not an excuse for those of us who were sent here to lead. That’s not an excuse for us to walk away. We can’t just give up because the politics are hard. I know there’s been a fascination, bordering on obsession, in this media town about what passing health insurance reform would mean for the next election and the one after that. How will this play? What will happen with the polls? I will leave it to others to sift through the politics, because that’s not what this is about. That’s not why we’re here.

This is about what reform would mean for the mother with breast cancer whose insurance company will finally have to pay for her chemotherapy. This is about what reform would mean for the small business owner who will no longer have to choose between hiring more workers or offering coverage to the employees she has. This is about what reform would mean for middle-class families who will be able to afford health insurance for the very first time in their lives and get a regular checkup once in a while, and have some security about their children if they get sick.

This is about what reform would mean for all those men and women I’ve met over the last few years who’ve been brave enough to share their stories. When we started our push for reform last year, I talked to a young mother in Wisconsin named Laura Klitzka. She has two young children. She thought she had beaten her breast cancer but then later discovered it had spread to her bones. She and her husband were working and had insurance, but their medical bills still landed them in debt. And now she spends time worrying about that debt when all she wants to do is spend time with her children and focus on getting well.

This should not happen in the United States of America. And it doesn’t have to. (Applause.)

In the end, that’s what this debate is about. It’s about what kind of country we want to be. It’s about the millions of lives that would be touched and, in some cases, saved by making private health insurance more secure and more affordable.

So at stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem. The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future. They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I do not know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right. (Applause.) And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law.

Thank you very much, everybody. Let’s get it done. (Applause.)

END
2:09 P.M. EST

Almost all politicians stretch the truth, or outright lie, to convince people that what they’re doing is for their benefit. But what’s happening right now regarding a possible parliamentary move by Senate Democrats to use reconciliation to pass health care reform is just too much.

There are so many Republican lies whizzing across the media landscape about reconciliation it’s hard to keep up. The two biggest whoppers that GOP Senators and Fox News are disseminating are that Republicans would never dream of using reconciliation to thwart a filibuster, and that the use of the existing reconciliation rule (created in 1974) is the so-called “nuclear option.”

Republicans and Fox News are counting on no one looking at the public record and uncovering their blatant fabrications. If you look, you’ll see that Republicans have used reconciliation way more often than Democrats have. In fact, in the more than 20 times it’s been used, Republicans are on record with using reconciliation 17 times.

Most recently the GOP chose reconciliation to pass the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005.

And as far as the so-called “nuclear option” is concerned – that has absolutely nothing to do with reconciliation – nothing, nada, zip, zilch.

It was Republicans who coined the “nuclear option” phrase back in 2003 when they threatened to change Senate rules outlawing the filibuster. They were pissed at Democrats who were trying to filibuster judicial nominees. It had nothing to do with reconciliation.

Watch this video. Stop watching Fox News. Think. Read. Research. Be critical. The information is there. “The truth is out there.” — Fox Mulder

President Obama appears to have finally realized that Republicans will never support any effort to reform health care. On Wed., Obama is expected to release a plan to pass health care reform. According to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, the president would like Republicans to not filibuster the bill in the Senate and allow a simple up-or-down vote, but that’s not going to happen.

Now Republicans know they have lost this battle and they’re freaking out. One can only hope there’s a special place in hell for these so-called Christians who lie through their teeth.

Here’s a video of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and vice presidential nominee speaking at an Alaska church in June 2008.

Whether Republicans like it or not, reconciliation has been used 22 times since President Carter was in office. Of those 22 times, 16 were Republican lead efforts to sidestep a filibuster. And contrary to what Republican hacks are saying, it has been used to pass big bills.

Watch this video mashup and you’ll get the gist of it.

At the Blair House Health Care Summit on Thursday, President Obama explains the Democrat’s proposal for Medicare Advantage. Republicans are claiming that changes to the Medicare Advantage are “Medicare cuts.” According to Obama, the only thing being cut are the profits private companies are taking from the Medicare Advantage program.

Here’s the exchange between Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Obama. McCain is clearly caught off-guard when Obama agrees with him about the special deal struck to keep Medicare Advantage for Florida.

Today, Rachel Maddow called out Republicans for their lies about reconciliation.

Republican senators are calling reconciliation the “nuclear option.” That’s not at all true. The nuclear option was a threat by Republicans to ban filibusters over judicial nominations in 2005.

The fact is that Republicans have used reconciliation 16 times out of the 22 times it’s been used. They’re on the record supporting the use of reconciliation.

And according to Maddow, NPR reported that the number of health care bills passed without the use of reconciliation can be counted on one hand.

Reconciliation is how we do health care reform – love it or leave it.

I got to watch this one live, it was a good show. Rep. Weiner (D-NY) on the House floor said today that the entire Republican party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the health insurance industry.

The Republicans reprimanded him for using inappropriate language on the House floor. Weiner withdrew his comments and said that every member of the Republican party he’s ever met is a wholly owned subsidiary of the health insurance industry.

Republicans squawked again and after a few minutes, Weiner withdrew his comments again and went on to dress the GOP down for prostituting themselves for health insurance companies.

This is the complete rush transcript of a speech Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) gave on the House floor this morning at approximately 11:30 a.m. eastern time.

The House was debating the health insurance anti-trust exemption created in 1945 by the McCarran-Ferguson Act. The act allows insurance companies to collude with one another to keep prices high and to share data for the purposes of cherry picking the best customers to insure.

We should listen to our constituents.

I did town halls in August and they were attended by over 8,000 people.

And there was one item of agreement between the extremes in the debate between those representing the Tea Party and those representing single-payer.

And that was consensus, that this industry, the health insurance industry, should not enjoy a special exemption under the law.

They should not be able to collude to drive up prices. Limit competition. Price gouge consumers. They should play by the same rules as every other industry in America.

And this archaic exemption from anti-trust law should go to the dustbin of history.

There was consensus on that.

Now come the Republicans, oh wait a minute, “We’re not protecting the industry, we don’t to allow them to still have the anti-trust exemption, it’s about the little guys.”

It’s always about the little guys, isn’t it? So let’s give the little guys a loophole, oh but wait a minute, the big guys can use the same loophole.

Now the other thing I’ve heard is let’s be bipartisan.

Well there’s nothing much more bipartisan than the report of The Anti-trust Modernization Commission from April 2007.

This was a commission created by the Republican Congress when they controlled both the House and the Senate and the White House with the members named by President George Bush and the Republican leadership of Congress.

They came to the conclusion that this loophole, that they’re advocating today, should not exist.

And I’ll quote briefly from the conclusions from the bipartisan Republican created commission.

They said, “A proposed exemption should be recognized as a decision to sacrifice competition.”

Oops, I thought they were for competition?

“And consumer welfare.”

I thought they were for the consumers?

“And should be allowed only if Congress determines that a substantial and significant counter-valuing societal value outweighs the presumption in favor of competition and the widespread benefits it provides.”

They go on to address their arguments and they say, there are those who will argue that the small companies need to aggregate data and they will need this safe harbor.

And they [the commission] say, no actually not.

This again is the Republican created commission.

“Like all potentially beneficial competitor collaboration generally, however such data sharing would assessed by anti-trust enforcers, and the courts, under rule of reason analysis. They would fully consider the potential pro-competitive effects of such conduct and condemn it only if on balance it was anti-competitive. Insurance companies would bare no greater risk then companies in other industries engaged in data sharing and other collaborative undertakings. To the extent that insurance companies engage in anti-competitive collusion, however, they would then be appropriately subject to anti-trust liability.”

They want to give them a safe harbor – that is so big that the Justice Department could never review it. Their objective to the fact that the Justice Department might look at and investigate the activities surrounding data sharing and potential collusion by the industry to continue to price gouge consumers and benefit unreasonably and profit unreasonably.

They want to create that loophole. That loophole is unnecessary.

If you adopt that proposal, we might as well just not pretend to care about consumers and consumer welfare and that we’re going to meaningfully address this industry playing by the same rules as every other industry.

[Will the gentleman yield?]

No I will not yield. The gentleman has his own time.

This industry should play by the same rules as all others – plain and simple.

Americans get that.

They’re not happy with seeing their insurance premiums double every ten years – and now it’s more of doubling rate of three to five years.

They know that they are being taken to the cleaners.

They know that the industry is trying to cherry pick.

They know there’s anti-trust activity going on.

It’s time for that to change.

No loopholes!

Here’s Harry Reid telling Republicans to quit whining about Democrats threatening to use reconciliation to pass health care reform and bypassing the GOP filibuster. Transcript and video.

The question is, is reconciliation the only way we can do health care reform. The answer to that is ‘no.’

But I’ve been told that my Republican friends are lamenting reconciliation.

But I would recommend for them, to go back and look at history.

Since 1981, reconciliation has been used 21 times. The vast majority of those reconciliation efforts have been by Republicans.

So, we have … nothing’s off the table. We have to take a look at that.

But realistically, they should stop crying about reconciliation as if it’s never been done before. It’s done almost every Congress. And they’re the ones that used it more than anyone else.

The Contract for America, most of the stuff in the Contract for America was done with reconciliation.

Tax cuts. Done with reconciliation.

Medicare. Done with reconciliation.

So, they better go back and look at history a little bit.

You can tell a lot about a movement by its leaders. One of the Tea Party leaders is Mark Williams. On his blog he refers to people as “faggots” and “retards.” He even called President Obama as a “racist-in-chief.”

His blog’s tag line is: “It’s not Right vs Left, It’s Right vs Wrong.”

Williams is supposedly a radio host, although I’ve never heard of him, and he’s a regular contributor to Fox News – that’s not surprising.

Here’s a snippet from his blog post calling people “retards” and “faggots.”

Did I say retard? I meant to say; genetically defective, circus freak, tiny cranium, hairy-arm-pitted female & faggot alleged male biological train wrecks who totally make the argument for forced Eugenics, starting with anybody with a Vermont return address. They could drag the entire gene-pool to the bottom if they ever bred with normal homo sapiens.

Williams’ blog is filled with hate-speech. While I could keep quoting him – it’s sickening.

My point is that while the Tea Party seek to gain a foothold in US politics, it’s becoming more and more clear that racism, homophobia and hatred are key driving forces behind this so-called movement.

While the Tea Partiers are loud, they don’t represent the values that most Americans adhere to, which is tolerance and acceptance of others. These people represent the fringes of our culture and not the mainstream – despite their undue media coverage.

Newsweek just published a poll showing that nearly half of all Americans think Obama’s health care reform sucks. When respondents learn more about it, they think it’s actually pretty cool.

“When asked about Obama’s plan (without being given any details about what the legislation includes), 49 percent opposed it and 40 percent were in favor,” reported Newsweek’s Sarah Kliff. “But after hearing key features of the legislation described, 48 percent supported the plan and 43 percent remained opposed.”

So this either means Americans are stupid, Republicans are amazing spinmeisters or Democrats are incompetent. More likely it means that Americans are pretty dumb, Republicans are compulsive liars and Democrats are a gaggle of bumbling fools.

Health care reform is arguably the biggest legislation to wind its way through our dysfunctional excuse of a democratic process in decades. But that doesn’t stop Americans from not giving a shit. Too many happily lap up the bullshit Fox News and the GOP throw in their bowl. Dumb.

Democrats are compulsively incompetent tools. They bicker with each other, each hoping they can be the one on TV tonight. Joe Lieberman was the vice president candidate in 2000. Now he takes any chance he can get to portray himself the biggest egomaniac in the party – the American people and his party be damned.

Republicans, knowing just how disengaged the American public is from politics, glibly spread lies and misinformation that Americans gobble up without nary a question raised. Mmm that’s good chum.

What poll after poll proves is Americans are woefully ignorant of the legislative process, Congress, public policy and they frankly have no idea what the hell is wrong with the country.

What we need to do as members of the media is a better job. What Americans need to do is read. What politicians need to do is go home. Publicly funded campaigns would be a great way to throw the bums out.

Please take my Blog Reader Project survey.

The mainstream media often refers to the Tea Party spectacle as a “movement.” It isn’t.

A CBS News poll shows that Tea Party “members” are actually pretty dumb. Tea Party people believe that President Obama has already raised taxes – he hasn’t. One-third of Tea Party people think Obama favors the poor – that’s code for blacks and other minorities – and there’s no basis for that belief in anything Obama has done or said. If anything, Obama favors Wall Street bankers and corporate fat-cats more than he does poor people.

Who’s to blame for the federal deficit? Only 7 percent of Americans say it’s Obama’s fault, but 19 percent of Tea Partiers blame him. Forty-one percent of Americans put the problem squarely on Bush’s while only 16 percent of Tea Party people do.

These so-called patriots hate the government. Ninety-one percent of Tea Party identifiers are dissatisfied or angry at the United States government.

Not surprisingly, most Tea Partiers live in the South.

“Tea Party identifiers are overwhelmingly white – 95 percent are white, compared to 77 percent of Americans,” the poll said.

If it’s a “movement,” not many people have no knowledge of it. Fifty-five percent of Americans have not even heard of the Tea Party. Only 19 percent of Americans claim to know a lot about the Tea Party.

And among those who’ve heard of the Tea Party, 42 percent said it doesn’t reflect most Americans’ values with 21 percent are unsure.

This is a letter from the Democratic National Committee. It’s written by Governor Tim Kaine and highlights the ever-present detachment the GOP has from working class Americans – the haves versus the have-nots.

“A million dollars is not a lot of money.” That’s what RNC Chairman Michael Steele thinks, anyway.

To most Americans, that’s crazy talk. But it’s no surprise coming from the head of a party that prefers favors for Wall Street to jobs on Main Street.

How long would it take you to earn $1 million? Click here to find out — then write a letter to the editor exposing the GOP’s agenda.

The average American household makes $52,000 per year. Only 2% make more than $250,000 — and millions are out of work in a recovering economy.

But while arguing to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy last Thursday at the University of Arkansas, Steele let slip that he thinks a million is “not a lot.” It’s outrageous — but sadly, not surprising.

Greed and excess on Wall Street nearly brought down our economy, health care costs are drowning families, but the GOP is fighting to protect big banks and block health reform while proposing more and more tax cuts for the rich.

What’s worse, the leading Republican on the House Budget Committee just proposed a budget that privatizes Social Security and shreds Medicare — two programs that millions of middle-class Americans rely upon.

Republicans are going all out to be seen as defenders of the “little guy” this election season. But Chairman Steele’s comment last week made it clear they’re not. We need to make sure every American hears about it.

Use our calculator to figure out how long it would take you to earn “not a lot of money” — then use our easy letter-to-the-editor tool, your own story, and our helpful tips to expose the GOP on the widely-read letters page of your local paper:

http://my.democrats.org/MillionGOP

Thanks,
Governor Tim Kaine

Sarah Palin has achieved what Ralph Nader never could – she’s the leader of a populist revolution. Palin is successful because she appeals to the lowest common denominator and progressives, like Nader, appeal to high level intellect.

Palin sees the world in black and white. She often refers to her “solutions” as simple and common sense. Palin’s for freedom, free markets and lower taxes. These are easy concepts for her to sell because Palin avoids detailing any proposals that would actually solve any of the problems this country faces. Her speech at the tea party convention last weekend was a series of poorly written slogans and catch phrases. She told the audience everything they wanted to hear.

Progressives on the other hand see the world in shades of gray. They understand that health care reform is a complex problem, the solution therefore is necessarily complex and requires more than three words to explain and understand.

I’m not saying that all Americans are stupid, but 300 million collectively are not that intelligent. And the anti-intellectual streak that permeates our culture makes it difficult to explain complex problems. Some things are require more than “Got Milk?” marketing tricks. Also, unfortunately critically thinking is just not taught in most high schools – that’s hurting us as the world becomes much more complicated and politicians hone their ability to lie.

But rather than offer counter proposals and honestly challenging the Democrat’s health care reform, conservatives resort to slogans and misinformation. They call the president a communist. They accuse Democrats of nationalizing health care and setting up death panels. It’s easier for conservatives to just push American’s buttons. Communist. Socialist. Death panels. Prominent conservatives today are just not honest brokers in the nation’s political discourse.

So when it comes to global warming, health care reform, unemployment and fixing the economy, progressives are labeled as pointy headed intellectuals while conservatives mock them and spread lies appealing to their base’s base instincts.

Rather than trying to “reach across the aisle,” Democrats should just go it alone. If Republicans want to filibuster their legislature – let them. They held up civil rights legislation in the ’60s for almost three months.

Force Republicans to bring our legislative process to a halt and see how that works out for them. While they might not succeed, if Democrats truly embrace the progressive agenda and educate the people about their policies, enough people will get it and those that don’t – oh well.

Here we go again. Just like in 2003, groupthink is sweeping the nation. When the war drums were beating their loudest to attack Iraq, the media and pundits were onboard with the Bush administration lies. No one challenged what everyone knew to be true – that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and he was going to attack the US. Now seven years later, we’re back at it again, but this time it’s that deadly deficit that will surely kill you and your family before the year is through.

Economist Paul Krugman has been calling for more deficit spending since the recession began. He wrote that “running big deficits in the face of the worst economic slump since the 1930s is actually the right thing to do. If anything, deficits should be bigger than they are because the government should be doing more than it is to create jobs.”

And according to Krugman, he’s not a lone ranger supporting deficit spending.

“Many economists take a much calmer view of budget deficits than anything you’ll see on TV. Nor do investors seem unduly concerned: U.S. government bonds continue to find ready buyers, even at historically low interest rates,” Krugman said in his Feb. 4 column.

So what’s all the fuss about deficits? It’s politics of course. The GOP and their talk radio and Fox News echo chamber have created the illusion that deficit spending is bad and needs to stop now.

Krugman wrote that “the current sense of panic is that deficit fear-mongering has become a key part of Republican political strategy, doing double duty: it damages President Obama’s image even as it cripples his policy agenda.”

And like the media’s duck-walking in lockstep with Bush’s push for war with Iraq, Americans will suffer if deficit spending is stopped now. Americans need jobs and they need them now. State governments can’t run deficits, but the federal government can.

“For the fact is that thanks to deficit hysteria,” Krugman said, “Washington now has its priorities all wrong: all the talk is about how to shave a few billion dollars off government spending, while there’s hardly any willingness to tackle mass unemployment. Policy is headed in the wrong direction — and millions of Americans will pay the price.”

Read Krugman’s column Fiscal Scare Tactics.”

Here’s the complete video of Sarah Palin’s speech at the Tea Party Convention on Feb. 6, 2010. Palin is the de facto leader of the Tea Party movement. The speech sounds like she’s planning for a presidential run in 2012.

There are two questions. Who will she pick as a running mate and what will the new political party be called?

When and if a transcript becomes available, it will be posted here.