Since the Republicans have managed to stand tall on their intransigence that up to 2 million unemployed Americans should lose their meager benefits, perhaps it is time to start introducing them to some of the unemployed. We have heard the Dickensian pronouncements on the Senate floor that the unemployed are lazy, that the benefits they receive are keeping them from looking for work, that it is more important in a financial crisis to cut spending (and thus cut the over all recovery off at the knees) than it is to help our fellow Americans who, through no fault of their own, are now paying the price for financial deregulation.

As long as this debate is kept in abstract terms it is easy for those Republicans who have a conscience (all three of them) to talk about how we should be burdening our children and grandchildren with debt. It is time to use the very effective method of hearings to bring the real face of the long term unemployed right into the face of the heartless and petty Republican majority.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

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I am a life long Democrat and Liberal. There is nothing but pride in those appellations for me. I have been a supporter of the idea of the Big Tent since before I really understood that it did to refer to the Party and the Circus. However, there is a limit and that limit has been reached. It is not acceptable for politicians to be able to call themselves Democrats and then piss on the party’s agenda from a great height.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

I am specifically looking at the Blue Dogs in the House and Senators Bayh, Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, and Lieberman. The time has come for them to either leave the party or be replaced. You have collectively benefited from millions of dollars of campaign donations from the DSCC and from the work of tens of thousands of union members and Democratic volunteers over the course of your political careers.

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