Is All Hope Gone?

It has been a really bad week for progressives. The bad news piling up on the road was like the wreckage after a Mac truck topples over in a crash on the interstate, with one car after another slamming into the mess. There were bits of good news peaking through here and there, like the deficit commission falling 3 votes short on its plan to make the middle class pay for a deficit created by tax cuts for the rich and Wall Street causing an economic collapse, but it was an ugly week overall:

• The co-chairs of the deficit commission got 11 votes for their plan to raise the retirement age, cut Social Security benefits, take away homeowners' mortgage deduction, take away workers' health care plans' tax advantage, and give corporations and the wealthy lower taxes. Even though the plan fell short of the 14 required by its executive order to be forwarded to Congress, the campaign manager for the commission's plan, the Washington Post, has proclaimed breathlessly that this is a great victory for goodness and truth -- and that is in its "news" section. And President Obama decided on a cross between no response and a positive one: not commenting on any of the specifics while praising the work of the commission way too much.
  
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