Liberals don't want to 'silence' conservatives -- they'd just like to have an honest democratic debate | Crooks and Liars

Right-wingers seem to have a problem understanding how this whole free-speech thing works. They seem to believe, for instance, that it's perfectly acceptable for them to say the most outrageous things imaginable as part of their rights to free speech -- but if someone stands up and exercises their free-speech rights by criticizing what they said, then by God, they're trying to take their rights away!




Liberals don't want to 'silence' conservatives -- they'd just like to have an honest democratic debate | Crooks and Liars

Health Care Law Benefits in 2011 and Years to Come, Efforts to Repeal Reform

here's your at-a-glance guide to the health care law provisions in effect now, as well as some still to come, and what they may mean for you.




Health Care Law Benefits in 2011 and Years to Come, Efforts to Repeal Reform

Five Things To Understand About The Egyptian Riots | The New Republic

It takes some hubris to write about events unfolding as fast as the protests in Egypt, especially when it’s clear that nobody saw this coming. Mubarak is preparing to address the nation, and it's unclear what will follow. Here are five points that American observers should keep in mind whatever comes next, while consuming the blog posts, Tweets, and TV coverage of their choice.



Five Things To Understand About The Egyptian Riots | The New Republic

Obama's Reagan

In May 2010, Barack Obama invited a small group of presidential historians to the White House for a working supper in the Family Dining Room. It was the second time he'd had the group in since taking office, and as he sat down across the table from his wife Michelle, the President pressed his guests for lessons from his predecessors. But as the conversation progressed, it became clear to several in the room that Obama seemed less interested in talking about Lincoln's team of rivals or Kennedy's Camelot than the accomplishments of an amiable conservative named Ronald Reagan, who had sparked a revolution three decades earlier when he arrived in the Oval Office. Obama and Reagan share a number of gifts but virtually no priorities. And yet Obama was clearly impressed by the way Reagan had transformed Americans' attitude about government. The 44th President regarded the 40th, said one participant, as a vital "point of reference." Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan's diaries and attended the May dinner, left with a clear impression that Obama had found a role model. "There are policies, and there is persona, and a lot can be told by persona," he says. "Obama is approaching the job in a Reaganesque fashion."



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2044579,00.html#ixzz1CSQ9pO5KSusanThur's Blog

Social Security- Raising False Alarms

The demagogues would have the public believe that Social Security is unsustainable, that it is some kind of giant contributor to the federal budget deficits. Nothing could be further from the truth. As the Economic Policy Institute has explained, Social Security “is emphatically not the cause of the federal government’s long-term deficits, since it is prohibited from borrowing and must pay all benefits out of dedicated tax revenues and savings in its trust funds.”



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Media Noise: The Year of Living Predictably

By Joe Klein Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2010

Excerpt: And yet, if you watched the news — especially the epileptic seizure that passes for news on cable television (and in certain precincts of the blogosphere) — you'd think that we were facing Armageddon, Sodom, Gomorrah and the last days of Pompeii all at once. This was especially true of Fox News, which emerged in 2010 as a full partner and funder of not just the Republican Party but also of that party's loony-tunes conspiratorial extreme. On the other side of the barricades, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann had more than a few moments of solipsistic self-righteousness (and his contributions to political candidates were no less questionable than Rupert Murdoch's, if not nearly as large). Even modest, moderate CNN continued its descent into breathless irrelevance, overwhelmed by a thundering horde of hoary political consultants, overanalyzing every quotidian hiccup and microscopic movement in the polls.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2039920,00.html#ixzz1AZE3d8jj