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If America truly is serious about dealing with its deficit problems, there's a fairly simple solution. But you're probably not going to like it: Enact a single-payer health care plan. See, we told you weren't going to like it.

We are at a pivotal moment in American history, and many Americans watching the deficit talks in Washington are confused, perplexed, angry and frustrated. This country, which has paid its debts from Day 1, must pay its debts. Anyone who says it is not a big deal for this country to default clearly does not understand what he or she is talking about. This is a nation whose faith and credit has been the gold standard of countries throughout the world. Some people simply say we're not going to pay our debt, that there's nothing to really worry about. Those are people who are wishing our economy harm for political reasons, and those are people whose attitudes will have terrible consequences for virtually every working family in this country in terms of higher interest rates, in terms of significant job loss, in terms of making a very unstable global economy even more unstable. Our right-wing friends in the House of Representatives have given us an option. What they have said is end Medicare as we know it and force elderly people, many of whom don't have the money, to pay substantially more for their health care. So when you're 70 under their plan and you get sick and you don't have a whole lot of income, we don't know what happens to you. They forget to tell us that if their plan was passed you're going to have to pay a heck of a lot more for the prescription drugs you're getting today. They we're going to throw millions of kids off health insurance. If your mom or dad is in a nursing home and that nursing home bill is paid significantly by Medicaid and Medicaid isn't paying anymore, they forgot to tell us what happens to your mom or dad in that nursing home. What happens? And what happens today if you are unemployed and you're not able to get unemployment extension? What happens if you are a middle-class family desperately trying to send their kids to college and you make savage cuts to Pell grants and you can't go to college? What does it mean for the nation if we

Obama hasn't closed Guantanamo and people are still being tortured at Bagram[2], the U.S. is bombing at least six Muslim countries that we know of (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan)[3], and the healthcare bill fiasco in which he had secretly traded away the public option from the beginning[4] very clearly show that he definitely hasn't changed the way Washington works. If anything he's made every conceivable pernicious undemocratic influence stronger.

Hundreds of protesters attended a rally after which they planted 558 crosses, representing the 558 uninsured Oregonians who die each year because they lack health care.  The group marched peacefully in two large groups along the sidewalks stopping for traffic. They proceeded without incident, and without a single police officer to escort or obstruct them to Pioneer Square. Following his apology for misleading citizens in a statement regarding the alleged rape of a teenager Police Chief Reese said: "Our Incident Commander Mike Leloff met with protestors before a march and asked if they wanted a police escort. When they told him no, he asked that they self-police their event and obey the law; police would only respond if there were complaints. The march participants agreed, and the event proceeded without any problems, or a police presence" An Occupy Portland Video Collective collaboration. Subscribe here for more daily updates. All content on this channel marked with a creative commons licence is available for derivative, non-commercial works only. Email occupyportland.mediacoalition@gmail.com to join our group of volunteers. www.occupyportland.org occupypdx.orgwww.occupytogether.orgwww.occupytomorrow.com

No serious person denies that Reagan's 1981 tax cuts and military increases threw the country into a pattern of borrowing and borrowing that we have not escaped. When Reagan took office the national debt was $995 billion. When Reagan left office it was $2.87 trillion and climbing fast. No serious person denies that Bush's 2001 tax cuts and continued military increases dramatically worsened the problem. Bush's last budget year ended with a record single-year deficit of $1.4 trillion. As the country discusses what to do about the borrowing the elephant in the room is that everyone understands that restoring top tax rates to pre-Reagan levels and cutting the military budget in half would solve the problem completely. But we can't do that. We can't even discuss it. And we all know why. And we all know why. It is because the Reagan Revolution transformed the country from a democracy to a plutocracy -- a country run by and for the wealthy. Such sensible and simple ideas are considered off-limits. To even bring up the idea of restoring tax rates to pre-Reagan levels and cutting military spending invites terrible consequences. The speaker risks becoming the target of the money's noise machine: Limbaugh, Hannity, Drudge, Fox. Smears. Humiliation. Banishment. Or the noise machine cranks up a campaign of misinformation, convincing people --especially DC people -- that what they see in front of their eyes just isn't so. Repeat it enough and it becomes solid knowledge. We all know this is the way it is. So don't tell me that "we don't have the money" to keep 300,000 teachers from being laid off, or to help the long-term, mostly older unemployed workers get something to live on and keep their health care. The money is right there in front of us, but the Congress is bought and paid for. What do we do? We have to demand representatives who represent us, not make excuses for representing the wealthy. The unfortunate, poor and disadvantaged must count every bit as much as the

But aside from the sheer hysterical ludicrousness of criticizing someone for engaging in "criticism of business" in the year 2010, when we have more recent examples than we can possibly count of businesses behaving irresponsibly, recklessly and criminally in their single-minded pursuit of profit, Paul's basic stance is actually quite useful; it highlights a core weakness in libertarian theory: its lack of a robust mechanism to ensure that the natural environment is not devastated by the actions of businesses.

Which is not to say that the Obama era has meant an end to law enforcement. On the contrary: In the past few years, the administration has allocated massive amounts of federal resources to catching wrongdoers - of a certain type. Last year, the government deported 393,000 people, at a cost of $5 billion. Since 2007, felony immigration prosecutions along the Mexican border have surged 77 percent; nonfelony prosecutions by 259 percent. In Ohio last month, a single mother was caught lying about where she lived to put her kids into a better school district; the judge in the case tried to sentence her to 10 days in jail for fraud, declaring that letting her go free would "demean the seriousness" of the offenses. So there you have it. Illegal immigrants: 393,000. Lying moms: one. Bankers: zero. The math makes sense only because the politics are so obvious. You want to win elections, you bang on the jailable class. You build prisons and fill them with people for selling dime bags and stealing CD players. But for stealing a billion dollars? For fraud that puts a million people into foreclosure? Pass. It's not a crime. Prison is too harsh. Get them to say they're sorry, and move on. Oh, wait - let's not even make them say they're sorry. That's too mean; let's just give them a piece of paper with a government stamp on it, officially clearing them of the need to apologize, and make them pay a fine instead. But don't make them pay it out of their own pockets, and don't ask them to give back the money they stole. In fact, let them profit from their collective crimes, to the tune of a record $135 billion in pay and benefits last year. What's next? Taxpayer-funded massages for every Wall Street executive guilty of fraud?

The past three years have been a disaster for most Western economies. The United States has mass long-term unemployment for the first time since the 1930s. Meanwhile, Europe's single currency is coming apart at the seams. How did it all go so wrong?

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, repairing our crumbling infrastructure will require an investment of $2.2 trillion over five years. (Source: ASCE Report Card for America's Infrastructure) For every $100 billion spent on infrastructure projects such as rebuilding our roads and bridges, public transportation, energy transmission and water systems, 1.8 million jobs would be created. (Source: Heintz, Robert, James Pollin, and Heidi Garrett-Peltier, "How Infrastructure Investments Support the U.S. Economy: Employment, Productivity and Growth." Amherst, MA: Political Economy Research Institute, January 2009) The current Congress hasn't passed a single job-creation bill. Instead of creating jobs, they've been killing them and slowing down the economic recovery with severe budget cuts. In fact, 1.8 million jobs will be lost as a result of the recent debt ceiling deal to cut government spending while failing to extend the payroll tax and emergency unemployment benefits. (Source: The Century Foundation/Economic Policy Institute) A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top .1% of Americans, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90% of us is only $31,244. (Source: Mother Jones http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph) In 1945, the top tax rate for millionaires was 66.4%. The top tax rate for millionaires today is 32.4%. (Source: Mother Jones http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph) Between 2007 and 2010, corporate profits came roaring back to record-high levels at the same time the country lost 8.2 million jobs, or 5.9% of the job base. (Source: Economic Policy Institute) Instead of investing in America and creating jobs, businesses have stockpiled nearly $1.9 trillion in cash - a record high. (Source: Federal Reserve) Corporate taxes account for only 1.3% of the gross d

The Occupy Wall Street movement is well into its second week of operation, and is now getting more attention from media as well as from people planning similar actions across the country. This is a promising populist mobilization with a clear message against domination by political and economic elites. Against visions of a bleak and stagnant future, the occupiers assert the optimism that a better world can be made in the streets. They have not resigned themselves to an order where the young are presented with a foreseeable future of some combination of debt, economic dependency, and being paid little to endure constant disrespect, an order that tells the old to accept broken promises and be glad to just keep putting in hours until they can't work anymore. The occupiers have not accepted that living in modern society means shutting up about how it functions. In general, the occupiers see themselves as having more to gain than to lose in creating a new political situation - something that few who run the current system will help deliver. They are not eager for violence, and have shown admirable restraint in the face of attack by police. There may be no single clear agenda, but there is a clear message: that people will have a say in their political and economic lives, regardless of what those in charge want. Occupy Wall Street is a kind of protest that Americans are not accustomed to seeing. There was no permit to protest, and it has been able to keep going on through unofficial understandings between protestors and police. It is not run by professional politicians, astroturfers, or front groups with barely-hidden agendas. Though some organizations and political figures have promoted it, Occupy Wall Street is not driven by any political party or protest organization. It is a kind of protest that shows people have power when they are determined to use it. Occupy Wall Street could be characterized as an example of a new type of mass politics, which has been seen in

In all the talk about the federal deficit, why is the single largest culprit left out of the conversation? Why is the one part of government that best epitomizes everything conservatives say they hate about government-- waste, incompetence, and corruption-all but exempt from conservative criticism? Of course, I'm talking about the Pentagon. Any serious battle plan to reduce the deficit must take on the Pentagon. In 2011 military spending accounted for more than 58 percent of all federal discretionary spending and even more if the interest on the federal debt that is related to military spending were added. In the last ten years we have spent more than $7.6 trillion on military and homeland security according to the National Priorities Project.

Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person's thoughts. Every waking moment-and even in our dreams-we struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness that we value.Drugs are another means toward this end. Some are illegal; some are stigmatized; some are dangerous-though, perversely, these sets only partially intersect. There are drugs of extraordinary power and utility, like psilocybin (the active compound in "magic mushrooms") and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), which pose no apparent risk of addiction and are physically well-tolerated, and yet one can still be sent to prison for their use-while drugs like tobacco and alcohol, which have ruined countless lives, are enjoyed ad libitum in almost every society on earth. There are other points on this continuum-3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or "Ecstasy") has remarkable therapeutic potential, but it is also susceptible to abuse, and it appears to be neurotoxic.[1]One of the great responsibilities we have as a society is to educate ourselves, along with the next generation, about which substances are worth ingesting, and for what purpose, and which are not. The problem, however, is that we refer to all biologically active compounds by a single term-"drugs"-and this makes it nearly impossible to have an intelligent discussion about the psychological, medical, ethical, and legal issues surrounding their use. The poverty of our language has been only slightly eased by the introduction of terms like "psychedelics" to differentiate certain visionary compounds, which can produce extraordinary states of ecstasy and insight, from "narcotics" and other classic agents of stupefaction and abuse.

Opponents of hydraulic "fracking" say it pollutes water and causes illness. Actor, activist (and newly-minted Countdown contributor) Mark Ruffalo joins Keith to discuss the lucrative practice that potentially threatens supplies of drinking water, and why so many have their heads in the sand. "This is an industry that is the dirtiest, slimiest, most arrogant, and negligent that you can imagine," Ruffalo says. Ruffalo also talks about rumors of blacklisting actors who speak out on political matters, and ponders why he was singled out by CNN to comment on it.  "You can do what's right or you can put your head in the sand," Ruffalo tells Keith, shortly before Keith bestows the ultimate Countdown honor -- welcoming Ruffalo into the ranks of official on-air contributors.

The prominent political and legal blogger Glenn Greenwald comments on the growing Occupy Wall Street movement. "What this movement is about is more important than specific legislative demands. It…is expressing dissent to the system itself," says Greenwald. "It is not a Democratic Party organ. It is not about demanding that President Obama's single [jobs] bill pass or anything along those lines. It is saying that we believe the system itself is radically corrupted, and we no longer are willing to tolerate it. And that's infinitely more important than specific legislative or political demands." Greenwald also discusses the possible shutdown of the online whistleblower website WikiLeaks due to a "financial blockade" led by MasterCard, Visa and PayPal. "The reason why all these companies cut off funds is because the government pressured and demanded that they do so," Greenwald says. "So, no due process, no accusation of criminal activity. You could never charge WikiLeaks with a crime. They're engaged in First Amendment activity. And the government has destroyed them through their pressure and influence over the private sector... WikiLeaks has shed more light on the world's most powerful factions than all media outlets combined, easily, over the last year, and that's the reason why they're so hated." [includes rush transcript]

Why highways move more swiftly when you force cars to crawl along at 55 mph.