It may be said that Barack Obama, among his other firsts, has become the first president of the Internet age. The Internet, specifically the World Wide Web, did as much as anything in his campaign, to help him win the presidency. And with some unprecedented techniques, he has governed through the internet, explaining his positions, publicizing his major proposals, making promises on issues such as Medicare and Social Security, and assuring prospective voters that his is one of the most open and tech-savvy administrations..

From the beginning of his campaign, through his first year in office, he has had great help from a booming, left-leaning blogosphere, including Move-On, the Center for American Progress, Buzzflash, Common Dreams, The Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars, Firedoglake, and the very profitable Huffington Post.

George Bush could have used the net, but as in most things worldly, he seemed ignorant about the internet and oblivious about its uses; and there seemed to no one able to teach him, if he was teachable. Towards the end of his presidency some corporations helped found a couple of phony grass roots groups and sites, such as Freedomworks,org, which was run by lobbyist and former House Majority Leader (under Newt Gingrich) Richard Armey, who helped create the Tea Party movement and now seeks the privatization of Social Security and Medicare, among other right-wing causes.

During Bush;s tenure, Armey got money from corporations, to bring in audiences to the White House to support some of Bush's initiatives; I doubt that Bush knew. But Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney did not use or need the internet as long as they had the cheerleaders of Fox (faux) News. Now with no Bush to love, Fox has continued to have more influence that the pro-Obama blogs in its scurrilous campaigns, with Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, to cripple the Obama presidency. Think of what Fox did to Georgia Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod; it was a television lynching and Fox has still not owned up to its crime..

Obama has had relatively friendly relations with networks like MSNBC, and its commentators, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann. But they have not been Obama toadies, for they have been critical of the president and his policies, especially his compromises, when warranted. But they have not resorted to the kind of loony, hateful vindictiveness seen on Fox.

In an effort to bypass the mostly wrongheaded and irrelevant mainstream media, Obama has depended on several well done, professional web sites to get his messages of accomplishments across. The site www.change.org, ended with the beginning of Obama's presidency. And it became the president's perennial campaign site, "Organizing for America," at www.obama.com , where people can link with the Democratic Party, sign up for the latest news from the administration, volunteer to help Democratic campaigns, read the White House analyses of new legislation, such as the Wall Street reforms and the latest battles in the Congress. If you sign up, you'll get periodic updates and you may be asked to contribute to Democratic organizations.

When last I looked at the site, it was linked to just about every social networking service, under the heading, "Obama Everywhere." And I watched a fair but simplistic YouTube presentation on what the Wall Street reforms mean to homeowners. It does not include the giveaways to banks as a result of Republican opposition and Obama's compromises. If you want to know more you may click on www.financialstability.com , which is a private search engine for financial planning and advisors. I don't know if they have financial ties to Democrats.

As the administration perfects its internet strategy, it has created sites specific to the messages it wishes to deliver. The newest and most useful is www.HealthCare.gov ,which was launched earlier this month by the Department of Health and Human Services. The site was designed for relatively simple searching to learn what the new health care reforms are offering and how to find private insurance. You may choose your state and find coverage options for yourself and your family and you can familiarize yourself on the new regulations that prohibit cancellation of your insurance if you get sick or refusal of coverage for a pre-existing condition.

Also there is some handy information on what is now the law: Adult children can stay on their parents' insurance until age 26. If you enroll in Medicare are a private plan, after September 23, most preventive tests, mammagrams, prostate tests, colonoscopies and immunizations, will be free-no deductibles, or co-insurance. And I guess you know by now that if your Part D drug coverage finds you in the dreaded "doughnut hole," let HHS know and the government will ease your pain with a $250 check. Beginning next year the law calls for the gradual closing of the hole. The site has a link to one of the better nonprofit advocacy sites www.medicareadvocacy.org

All this internet stuff is good, but the White House internet machine and its blogger allies are missing an important audience that Obama has overlooked to his political peril. Older people, who should be his natural constituency, are not as enamored with Obama as many younger voters. One reason they are ignored; most of the elderly don't use the internet. And the Obomans have, from the start gone after the votes and enthusiasm of younger people.

But older people are the most consistent voters and their number is growing. The latest Pew Research poll reports that older voters are inclined this year to vote Republican by a 52-41 margin; even voters over the age of 49 say they'll vote Republican by a 45-43 margin. Only young voters say, by a 57-32 margin, they'll vote Democratic. Pew says Obama's approval rating has dropped this summer by nine points among white independents and 12 points among women over 50.

Those figures for older voters, which reflects how they voted in 2008, suggest they will be voting against their interests, for the Republicans promise to privatize Medicare and dismantle Social Security. But the older generation, may not believe those threats and may be more concerned about and afraid of the huge federal debt. They are, after all, still recalling the Great Depression.

Beyond that, Barack Obama's youth and his cool and cerebral style, according to many commentators, are not connecting with the older generations. Their members of Congress hold meetings about the health care reforms, but they reach only a few people.. And the Medicare manuals they will get can be confusing. Older people don't care much about the reforms in private insurance, which they don't use.

While more and more older Americans are taking to the internet, large numbers depend on the mails, television, their neighbors and doctors to figure out how the health reforms will or won't affect them. I'm not aware that HHS is reaching out to older people with mailings. And all they know is that they don't want the government messing wit their Medicare.

write to saulfriedman@comcast.net Friedman also writes for www.timegoesby.net

Just months after historic legislation banned certain billing practices, card issuers have dreamed up new ones designed to trip up consumers.

LAS VEGAS — Researchers have uncovered new ways that criminals can spy on Internet users even if they're using secure connections to banks, online retailers or other sensitive Web sites.

The attacks demonstrated at the Black Hat conference here show how determined hackers can sniff around the edges of encrypted Internet traffic to pick up clues about what their targets are up to.

It's like tapping a telephone conversation and hearing muffled voices that hint at the tone of the conversation.

The problem lies in the way Web browsers handle Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, encryption technology, according to Robert Hansen and Josh Sokol, who spoke to a packed room of several hundred security experts.

Encryption forms a kind of tunnel between a browser and a website's servers. It scrambles data so it's indecipherable to prying eyes.

SSL is widely used on sites trafficking in sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, and its presence is shown as a padlock in the browser's address bar.

SSL is a widely attacked technology, but the approach by Hansen and Sokol wasn't to break it. They wanted to see instead what they could learn from what are essentially the breadcrumbs from people's secure Internet surfing that browsers leave behind and that skilled hackers can follow.

Their attacks would yield all sorts of information. It could be relatively minor, such as browser settings or the number of Web pages visited. It could be quite substantial, including whether someone is vulnerable to having the "cookies" that store usernames and passwords misappropriated by hackers to log into secure sites.

Hansen said all major browsers are affected by at least some of the issues.

"This points to a larger problem – we need to reconsider how we do electronic commerce," he said in an interview before the conference, an annual gathering devoted to exposing the latest computer-security vulnerabilities.

For the average Internet user, the research reinforces the importance of being careful on public Wi-Fi networks, where an attacker could plant himself in a position to look at your traffic. For the attacks to work, the attacker must first have access to the victim's network.

Hansen and Sokol outlined two dozen problems they found. They acknowledged attacks using those weaknesses would be hard to pull off.

The vulnerabilities arise out of the fact people can surf the Internet with multiple tabs open in their browsers at the same time, and that unsecured traffic in one tab can affect secure traffic in another tab, said Hansen, chief executive of consulting firm SecTheory. Sokol is a security manager at National Instruments Corp.

Their talk isn't the first time researchers have looked at ways to scour secure Internet traffic for clues about what's happening behind the curtain of encryption. It does expand on existing research in key ways, though.

"Nobody's getting hacked with this tomorrow, but it's innovative research," said Jon Miller, an SSL expert who wasn't involved in the research.

Miller, director of Accuvant Labs, praised Hansen and Sokol for taking a different approach to attacking SSL.

"Everybody's knocking on the front door, and this is, 'let's take a look at the windows,'" he said. "I never would have thought about doing something like this in a million years. I would have thought it would be a waste of time. It's neat because it's a little different."

Another popular talk at Black Hat concerned a new attack affecting potentially millions of home routers. The attack could be used to launch the kinds of attacks described by Hansen and Sokol.

Researcher Craig Heffner examined 30 different types of home routers from companies including Actiontec Electronics Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc.'s Linksys and found that more than half of them were vulnerable to his attack.

He tricked Web browsers that use those routers into letting him access administrative menus that only the routers' owners should be able to see. Heffner said the vulnerability is in the browsers and illustrates a larger security problem involving how browsers determine that the sites they visit are trustworthy.

The caveat is he has to first trick someone into visiting a malicious site, and it helps if the victim hasn't changed the router's default password.

Still: "Once you're on the router, you're invisible – you can do all kinds of things," such as controlling where the victim goes on the Internet, Heffner said.

It is no surprise that NBC's reality show The Biggest Loser has been such a huge success since its first broadcast in 2004. The lure and drama of quick weight loss is hard to resist.

Although I give the show credit for inspiring some people to start a weight loss program who otherwise wouldn't, when it comes to lifestyle management, long-term health risks and keeping the weight off, this show is doing America a disservice by focusing on short-term gains rather than long-term success.

As dramatic as the before and after photos of contestants are, the "slow and steady" approach favored by the tortoise from the Aesop's fable The Tortoise and the Hare, is really a better way to go.

Easy Go, Easy Come Back

Quick weight loss strategies -- like very low calorie diets, eating primarily one type of food (e.g. Cabbage Soup Diet) or dehydration methods -- put your body in panic or starvation mode. The body is resilient and can handle a certain amount of abuse. However, these methods are medically risky and can have long-term physical or psychological repercussions.

I often see this in my practice. Individuals will come to me after following these methods, only to be distraught that they are gaining weight at a rapid pace after the initial euphoria of dropping so much weight.

You can also see it when you look at the history of The Biggest Loser contestants. Many of them initially lost 50-150 lbs. only to go back to their regular lives without the help or encouragement of the show. As a result, a substantial percentage of their weight came back.

Last season's Biggest Loser Michael Ventrella lost 50 percent of his body weight, going from 526 lbs to 264 lbs in only 18 weeks. This translates to a weight loss of approximately 14.55 pounds per week, or a deficit of 7,300 calories per day.

Although it's easy to be wowed by this dramatic drop this kind of rapid weight loss carries considerable medical risk.

Weigh the Risks

Edward P. Tyson, M.D., a Texas-based physician specializing in eating disorders states, "Michael would have had to run over 33 plus miles per day or the equivalent of other exercises in addition to being on a restrictive diet to lose that amount of weight in such a short period of time."

Rapid weight loss involves muscle loss, and not just the kind on your biceps - it can mean the loss of muscle tissue from internal organs such as your heart and diaphragm.

Medical research has reported that rapid weight loss can result in:

• Cardiac arrest

• Eating disorders

• Lowered metabolism by as much as 40-50 percent

• Apathy, depression and fatigue

• Nervousness, restlessness and anxiety

• Abnormal accumulation of fluid around the ankles and wrist called edema, which is linked to starvation

Says Dr. Tyson, "I am worried that without the involvement of someone with considerable medical experience in dealing with severe eating disorders, these problems could be missed until too late. Some of them likely could not be avoided."

I frequently tell my clients that it does not matter what you weigh today, but more importantly what you weigh a year from today. Focus on your overall health, stay on track to achieve your goals and the changes you want to see to your body will follow.

Be Your Own Reality Star

Lifestyle management involves carving out some time each day to plan your meals and exercise. It might involve:

1. Eliminating excuses like: "I'll exercise when this project is over, when the kid's schedules are more manageable, or when this crisis is done."
2. Committing yourself to a healthier routine by working through the hard or mundane times. It is not necessary to have an elaborate exercise program or millions of people watching you on TV.
3. Eating fewer bites, moving your body each day and saying "no" to whatever gets in the way of your weight and health goals. Consider a workout buddy for accountability and motivation.
4. Working with your doctor or a registered dietitian to identify other changes you can make and to establish achievable goals and milestones.

Giving your body the dignity to lose weight at the pace it desires is the key.

The adrenaline of the reality show or the game serves to drive the momentum of weight loss. However, once the contestants are off camera, the adrenaline calms down. Since the metabolism has been compromised with a low-calorie diet and aspects of the relationship with food have not been fully addressed or healed, the ramifications of weight gain after leaving the show are inevitable.

Reasonable lifestyle changes allow your body to voluntarily lose weight and keep it off. When you make small changes by exercising and lowering your food intake by 10-20 percent, your metabolism is not compromised.

Your health is not a contest, and the most important person watching is you.

For more information see susandopart.com

Sen. Christopher Dodd approached Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair in recent days to gauge whether she would be interested in running the new consumer-protection agency, according to people familiar with the matter.

The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee's behind-the-scenes courtship of Ms. Bair suggests he is trying to find a nominee who might win favor in the Senate. It will be Mr. Dodd's job to move the nominee through a preliminary vote on his committee and then defend the person's record on the Senate floor.

Last week, this column took a week off, due to an extended trip into the desert for the Netroots Nation convention. But now, we turn our sights back on the Nation's Capitol region once again to examine what's been going on there in our absence.

Whoops! Looks like the first thing that's been going on is that the region now has a new nickname -- the "DMV" -- amongst the hipster set (note: I fully understand that that use of "hipster" automatically disqualifies me from judging what is cool and what is not among today's youth). This moniker comes from the hip-hop music scene, and it stands for "District (of Columbia), Maryland, and Virginia."

But is this wise, one wonders? The question that immediately springs to mind is how can anything called the "DMV" be considered remotely cool? For those of you in states with differently-labeled government offices (such as a Motor Vehicles Administration, for instance), allow me to explain. In many states, this acronym stands for the not-so-beloved Department of Motor Vehicles. You know -- the government office we all love to hate more than any other, with the possible exception of the Internal Revenue Service.

I once had a conversation with a Russian guy I worked with (in a previous career) who had lived there when it was the Soviet Union, and I asked him what reminded him most in America of the Soviet era. His answer was instantaneous: the D.M.V. was the closest thing to Soviet life in the United States. "The same endless lines, the same mind-numbing paperwork, and the same surly women at the counter -- just like home!"

In American culture, of course, the D.M.V. is represented by the twins Patty and Selma Bouvier, on The Simpsons. Stereotypically spinster and relentlessly (and sarcastically) negative towards their sister Marge, her choice of husband, and (most especially) the people waiting in line to see them at their workplace, Patty and Selma represent the cringe-inducing reaction most Americans have to the letters "DMV." So it's a wonder why anyone could think this is a great idea, when picking a roll-off-the-tongue nickname.

Now, I admit that Washington's official nickname isn't as snappy as, say, "The Big Apple," but "The Nation's Capital" does have a certain majesty to it. But, it is felt, this isn't as inclusive to the Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

So I've got a better idea. Take your cue from Hawkeye Pierce's tent from M*A*S*H, and name the region "The Swamp." After all, everyone knows Washington was built on former swampland, and no matter how the engineers have tried over the past two centuries, they've never been fully able to "drain the swamp" in our seat of government (so to speak). So it works on two levels.

I encourage everyone to start using this term immediately.

We're actually going to hand out two awards in both categories this week, to catch up on last week's absence.

Shirley Sherrod, whose name was all but unknown a few weeks ago, emerged as just about the only one in the scandal surrounding her firing who remained untarnished by the entire fiasco. This was because she refused to go gently into that good night, to borrow a phrase. Pretty much everyone else was left with varying amounts of egg on their faces, with the possible exception of the white farmer who defended Sherrod publicly.

After a right-wing site released a heavily-edited (one might say "propagandized") video of a speech Sherrod gave on racial relations and her own personal journey to stand up for what is right in life -- which was edited down to seem as though she was a white-hating black lady -- the Obama administration did the only thing they do with swift and decisive action, it seems: they fired her (or, strong-armed her into resigning, if you will). Obama can act quickly when he's giving people the boot, you've got to admit, whether it is Van Jones or the general running the Afghanistan situation for him. And, like Van Jones, the Obama administration leaps into action when the right wing demands someone's scalp.

This time, they got burnt by doing so. But it was the aftermath which was impressive. Sherrod, figuring (quite accurately) that she now had nothing more to lose, became a fixture on cable television for about a solid week. She told her story, the media (belatedly) dug up the full unedited video, and she's even held the Obama administration at arm's length when they relented and offered her a new job (assumably, if she'll start work immediately and please stop appearing every four minutes on various cable news shows).

But she was right to be incensed at how she had been treated, and she was right to be indignant about the entire experience. She could have taken the two normal routes for anyone disgraced in Washington -- disappear into obscurity; or rant and rave how you've been done wrong, with no proof to back up your story, until eventually nobody listens to you. Fortunately, the full tape of her speech existed. Fortunately, the white farmer she referenced is still alive. Fortunately, he was willing to support her publicly. In other words, she could prove she had been wronged, which made it a much more compelling story for the news media.

For impressively fighting to clear her name, and gaining a national podium on which to speak by doing so, and for impressively shaming the Obama administration into admitting its mistake, Shirley Sherrod was last week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week winner.

This week, it was pretty easy to pick the MIDOTW, as all it took was watching the video of Representative Anthony Weiner speaking out against Republican obstructionism for a bill to provide medical care for 9/11 responders. That anyone would vote against such a thing is an outrage, and Weiner got outraged. This clip should be seen by every Democratic officeholder or candidate to see what fighting for what you believe in looks like. Democrats used to do this "righteous indignation" thing quite well, but somewhere over the last three decades it has bled away. Republicans still know how to do this sort of thing (they do it at the drop of a hat, truth be told). But Democrats increasingly don't. Which is why Weiner's rant is so refreshing to hear.

The key here for Democrats is that you can't just sit back and assume every voter knows that the Republican Party has nothing left but obstructionism. You've got to point it out to them. And you've got to do so on votes like these -- where Democrats are so obviously on the side of the angels. The only way to end this mindless obstructionism is to relentlessly -- and forcefully -- point it out when it happens.

Because Weiner showed everyone else how to do this, he wins this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week, hands down.

[Shirley Sherrod is (as of this writing) not in a public office. Congratulate Representative Anthony Weiner (his official House web contact page only allows constituents to contact him) at (202) 225-6616, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

Again, we have two weeks to cover here, so let's get right to it.

Last week, the person who should have been fired was either Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, or whatever political-operative numbskull in the White House made the call on firing Sherrod. Now, this wasn't big enough for, say, President Obama to resign in disgrace, but someone should have taken the fall for this, and it should not have been Sherrod herself.

The whole thing was handled terribly. Either Vilsack or the White House overreacted, failed to do due diligence, and indeed failed even to make any sort of attempt at trying to ascertain if there even was another side to the story -- for instance, by asking Sherrod herself. All they cared about was not giving Fox News a single news cycle of embarrassment for the president. Instead, they gave Fox News (and everyone else) a whole week of embarrassment for the president.

Obama struggled to regain control of the controversy, which he could have easily done by "reluctantly accepting Tom Vilsack's resignation" -- which would have put an end it. Instead, Obama dithered. Vilsack and Obama eventually made apologies, but by then the story was off and running with a life of its own. By the end of it, the blogger looked bad, the media looked worse, but the ones coming off smelling the worst in the entire mess were Obama and Vilsack. So we're awarding both of them last week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award. I guess the Obama administration's motto will henceforth be: "The buck stops at Shirley Sherrod."

Sheesh.

Picking this week's MDDOTW was pretty easy, as Representative Charlie Rangel's disappointment was aired for all to see by the House Ethics Committee. Charlie's already won three previous MDDOTW awards (out of his total of four) for his financial hanky-panky, and he'll go right on winning them until this mess is over. For reference's sake, here are the previous times Rangel has won the ignoble MDDOTW for exactly the same thing (he has, I admit, possibly set the record for winning the award more times for the same issue than anyone else): FTP [47], FTP [97], and FTP [113].

No further explanation is really necessary why Rangel is also this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week.

[Contact President Barack Obama on the White House contact page, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (no official Department of Agriculture web contact info, sorry) at (202) 720-2791, and Representative Charlie Rangel (official House contact web page only works for constituents) at (202) 225-4365, to let them know what you think of their actions.]

Volume 132 (7/30/10)

One of the speakers (I believe it was Ed Schultz, but couldn't swear to it) at Netroots Nation made a good point on the firing of Sherrod -- the White House reacts to a complaint on a right-wing blog instantaneously, however they never even acknowledge the lefty media at all. Obama gives no one-on-one interviews to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, but finds time to sit down with Fox News. The White House certainly never reacts to outrage from the left about who works for them (otherwise Rahm Emanuel would be a distant memory, for example), but they immediately cringe at any criticism from some blogger on the right.

That's not really a great intro to the talking points section here, I realize, but I just had to say I have to agree with the sentiment. Obama could do himself a world of good with his own base if he'd occasionally toss them a bone, even just by sitting down and talking to the media which plays to that base. It's a real wonder why this has yet to happen, especially when you consider the voter "enthusiasm gap" going into the midterm elections.

But not to be totally gloomy here, because some Democrats, and particularly their leadership, have woken up and realized that election season is nigh, and they'd better start sounding like Democrats out on the campaign trail. Also, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid showed up and answered (mostly softball, moderated) questions at Netroots Nation, so maybe that's why I feeling particularly mellow towards them this week. I do like to (from time to time) highlight what I see as Democrats framing and messaging things right, so this week the first six of our talking points will be out of the mouths (or press offices, or campaigns) of either Reid or Pelosi. But then I just had to let it rip on the final talking point, just because. Without further ado....

   Forward, not back

I've been banging this drum for awhile, and it appears Democrats have picked up on it. Language experts will tell you, people like forward-looking language (like "forward," for instance) to terms that look backward (like, you guessed it, "backward"). Here's how Speaker Pelosi put it at a recent press conference:

Further evidence that we have moved America forward and that we cannot go back. Republicans are trying to take us back. As they have said, they would have the "exact agenda" of the Bush Administration, which they think people will look on with more fondness. We are not going back. Instead, we're going forward, protecting the middle class, making progress, never going back.

   Make it in America

Which leads into what seems to be the theme Democrats have chosen for this election: "Make it in America." Not bad, as slogans go. Conjures up all sorts of images, mostly good ones about how we used to actually make stuff in this country, and one of the main things wrong is that we don't anymore. Here, again, is Pelosi:

And our centerpiece: "Make it in America." Legislation to ensure that jobs, good-paying jobs, are created here in America. And we begin by repealing the provision in the law that gives a tax break to business for sending jobs overseas. A series of legislation that we have seen, investments in research and energy legislation and the rest, and a "Make It in America" manufacturing strategy. A strategy to support American small businesses. And we hope that the Senate will pass the small business bill today. We're creating millions of clean energy jobs, rebuilding roads, bridges, ports and rails and training workers for the 21st century. These other initiatives have been passed on the floor, many with very strong bipartisan support and we are very pleased with that. Again, all the times we create jobs and reduce the deficit as we take the country forward. We cannot afford to go back.

   The Bush years

A recent Washington Post article points out that running against Bush is still likely a smart thing for Democrats to do. If Republicans had been smarter, and offered up any new ideas (complete with some details instead of just bland sweeping statements like "we're against Big Government"), then this political route for Democrats would have been cut off. Since the Republicans haven't done so, the case can easily be made that Republicans want to return us to the Bush era (since they can't seem to come up with anything they'd do differently if they held Congress next year as the last time they did so, under Bush). So hammer this one home, every chance you get. From a Pelosi press release:

Congressional Republicans support Wall Street banks, credit card companies, Big Oil, and insurance companies -- the special interests that benefited from George Bush's policies and created the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. A decade of Republican rule nearly doubled our national debt. We are not going back.

Democrats in Congress are fighting to help small businesses create jobs here at home. Democrats are taking America in a New Direction -- creating good American jobs, providing the lowest taxes in 60 years for the middle class and small businesses, and closing tax loopholes that send jobs overseas.

Congressional Republicans support Wall Street banks, credit card companies, Big Oil, and insurance companies -- the special interests that benefited from George Bush's policies and created the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. A decade of Republican rule nearly doubled our national debt. Why would we go back?

   Attack Tea Party ideas directly

The same article points out that attacking the Tea Parties directly (and tying them to the Republicans) might not be such a good idea, because they are still relatively new in the public's mind, and have yet to really gel. So instead of attacking them directly, do so in a different way -- attack their ideas directly. At the top of this list should be Social Security. Again, from Pelosi's presser:

I don't think that the Fiscal Commission was established to undermine Social Security, and so that our support for Social Security undermines their work. This isn't political. This is who we are. For 75 years or longer, in preparation for the passage of Social Security, this has been a value system for us, for our country, and certainly a priority for the Democratic Party.

We stood proudly together on the steps of the Capitol yesterday to declare that, as we observe the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Social Security, that we are here to preserve Social Security and make the clear differentiation.

Republicans in their budget have the privatization of Social Security. Democrats want to preserve Social Security; Republicans want to privatize it. We are for ensuring Social Security. They will enable "social insecurity." So that's where we are.

   "Too extreme..."

This is a two-word talking point, which continues the previous concept. Harry Reid has been doing wonders with his advertising in Nevada (being in Las Vegas all week, I saw quite a few of these ads), because he drew a Tea Party candidate who Reid has successfully painted as looney. This was due to her winning the primary over the "chickens for checkups" lady, it should be noted (both of which were Tea Party darlings). Reid has improved noticeably in the polls of late (other Democrats, take note) because he has relentlessly been using Sharron Angle's own words against her to portray her as far out of the mainstream of Nevada politics. The tagline to these ads is always a variation on a single theme, which should be used against all the other Tea Party candidates out there this year:

Too extreme...

[Reid's ads usually end with "Too extreme for Nevada," for instance.]

   Republicans hate small businesses

Harry Reid has recently been pushing a measure in the Senate to give some help to small businesses. The Republicans have been filibustering it, just like they filibuster everything these days, no matter what. So make it an issue! Point the harsh spotlight of public attention on it! Republicans hate small businesses!

This one comes from Harry Reid himself:

We are here to solve problems, and Nevadans have grown weary of unreasonable Republican delay tactics that prioritize their petty political calculations over our progress as a nation. Republican obstruction is poisoning the environment in Washington and blocking critical support for families and businesses across the country. Every time Democrats take steps to assist our recovery, Republicans throw up a wall of obstruction that ends up hurting middle-class families and small businesses.

This evening, after Democrats agreed to a series of amendments Republicans asked for, Republicans reversed course and blocked us from moving forward with small business legislation -- the centerpiece of which includes a bipartisan amendment offered by the Republican Senator from Florida. At the same time they also blocked us from providing assistance to states to help them provide health care for the elderly and low-income families, stopped funding to prevent teacher layoffs and stood in the way of long overdue justice for minority farmers.

Democrats will keep fighting to protect our middle class, and we will not allow Republican obstruction to derail our economic recovery.

   So now "deficits don't matter," is that what you're saying?

OK, I had to write at least one of these from scratch this week. This should be a major theme of this year's elections, because it so blisteringly points out the basic hypocrisy behind Republican worries about the deficit or the national debt. Sure, Republicans just love to go on television and cry crocodile tears over the nasty, nasty deficits -- but when the rubber meets the road, they really don't give two hoots about deficits when it comes to their economic legislative priorities. This needs to be brought up again and again and again on the campaign trail, because Republicans really do not have an answer for this, other than to say things were peachy-keen under Bush's economy (see: this week's Talking Points, numbers one and three...). Hit them with this, and hit them hard:

"So, let's see if I've got this straight. Republicans are for reducing the deficit when it comes to a few tens of billions of dollars for unemployment benefits, they're for reducing the deficit when it comes to a similar amount of tax breaks for small businesses, and -- astonishingly -- they're for reducing the deficit when it comes to spending a little federal money to take care of the health of the first responders to the 9/11 tragedy. But when the subject turns to tax cuts for the Paris Hiltons of this world, then they go back to Dick Cheney's notorious quote: 'deficits don't matter.'

"Extending these tax cuts on the ultra-wealthy -- and let me be straight, we're not talking about extending middle-class tax cuts like the elimination of the 'marriage penalty' here (which Democrats are in favor of doing) -- we are talking here about raising the taxes of people making over $250,000 per year, which is going to cost the federal government almost eight hundred billion dollars in deficit spending, over the next ten years. That number is just the sum of the tax cuts on the rich. The Republicans had years and years when they controlled both the White House under George Bush and both houses of Congress, and they never made these tax cuts permanent -- because at the time, they were scared of the explosion it would cause to our federal deficit. Now, they have embraced this fiscal irresponsibility to the tune of close to a trillion dollars of new deficit spending.

"So, I'd like to ask all the Republicans in favor of giving millionaires and billionaires a four or five percent tax cut -- how are you going to pay for any of it? What are you going to cut from the federal budget that costs $800 billion? You'll notice that they never have an answer for this, because they are playing a shell game with the Tea Party supporters. Republicans sure talk a good line on the deficit when it comes to a small amount of emergency spending, but when it comes to structural tax matters, they are all in favor of passing on the bill for hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars to our children and grandchildren. The choice for the voters is obvious. Because Republicans simply do not have an answer to how they're going to pay for any of this 'wealthfare' giveaway to the ultra-rich. They never do, because when it comes to tax cuts, as Cheney said, deficits quite obviously do not matter to Republicans. Someone should mention this to the Tea Partiers, don't you think?"

Chris Weigant blogs at:

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According to several newspaper accounts, extremely rich people are spending their money on something that surprises me: theme parks. It just goes to show how out of touch I am with the ultra rich. I thought that they might treat themselves to things like putting an extra stamp on an envelope "just in case," showering for as long as they want, or splurging at the car wash and getting that carnuba wax. But I was wrong. Now the picture is more like this: After an executive receives his obscene bonus of tens of millions of dollars, he starts for the office door and is stopped by a colleague who asks, "Where are you going?" The guy with the big bucks looks at the camera and replies, "I'm going to Disneyland."

Theme parks are suffering financially these days. While so many people are struggling to pay their grocery bills, the last thing they are thinking about spending their money on is "The Mad Hatter's Tea Cups." However there is a niche market that is spending more than usual on things like Disneyland, Sea World, and Universal tours. That niche with a spending itch is the very rich.

For years, bored, rich people have gone on challenging and dangerous vacations. They've run with the bulls in Pamplona, hunted bears in Alaska, and even taken the ultimate risk by having their kitchens remodeled. So it's not surprising that Disney and the others have been trying to attract this kind of spending. Sea World plans on expanding their special "swim with the dolphins package" that starts at $199 per person now. Disney World has started to sell homes ranging up to $8 million with special access to the rides at the theme park. If I had $8 million to spend on a house, I'd want it to be as far as possible from a theme park. Once again, I'm just not thinking like the very rich.

How much money do you have to have to be considered "ultra rich," and how does anyone know how these people spend their money? American Express gathered the statistics and released them. (Isn't that nice to know that credit card companies can do things like that)? American Express classifies people as "ultra-affluent" if they charge at least $7,000 a month -- or $84,000 a year -- on their credit card. And someone at American Express noticed that these ultra-affluent cardholders spent 32% more on theme parks in the first quarter of this year than in 2009.

So how will theme parks cater to people who have all that money? I assume that they will have more and more adventurous and exclusive experiences. Sea World, for example, already has plans to expand its Discovery Cove. That's where admission is limited to just over 1,000 people a day who do things like hand-feed parrots. You can also pay $500 to be a trainer for a day at Sea world. I guess they think it's worth every penny to have their hands smell like fish for a week. A new addition will give rich visitors a chance to have "shark encounters." The only problem with having some of these Wall Street instant millionaires in that tank is that it'll be hard to tell which ones are the sharks.

There will be more exotic rides and attractions at all of the theme parks. Don't be surprised if a night at "Psycho's" Bates Motel includes being attacked when you take a shower. Isn't that just perfect for the wealthy honeymoon couple? At the "Dumbo, the Flying Elephant" ride, you'll be able to jump out of a plane while sitting on an elephant. I guess for a few bucks more the truly adventurous can do it the other way around - jumping out of a plane with the elephant sitting on them. And on the Jungle Cruise, the pampered but bored ultra-richie will be able to wrestle a python while getting a pedicure.

Maybe I should sign up for one of these exclusive adventures. I could meet somebody there who could help me in the business world. Who knows? I might be in line with a super billionaire who will want to go into business with me. It's possible. Let's face it: it's a small world after all.

Lloyd Garver has written for many television shows, ranging from "Sesame Street" to "Family Ties" to "Home Improvement" to "Frasier." He has also read many books, some of them in hardcover. He can be reached at lloydgarver@gmail.com. Check out his website at lloydgarver.com and his podcasts on iTunes.

The bluntly-named group "Stop Islamization in America" has posted signs on the sides of metro buses across the country this summer, reading: "Fatwa on your head?" and "Leaving Islam?" Pamela Geller, who heads the organization, says she just wants to help out Muslims endangered by their own religion.

Funny: I don't believe I've seen any signs yet reading: "Priest molesting you in the confession booth? Leaving Catholicism?"

There is a new and disturbing trend towards Muslim bashing in the United States. If it continues apace it is likely to help stir up a real national "clash of civilizations." Too bad. The American Muslims I know are some of the most open-minded and tolerant practitioners of the Islamic faith.

Witness Newt Gingrich's bizarre stance on the planned Muslim community center two blocks from the World Trade Center with a mosque on one floor: "There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia," he contends.

Is he saying we should be just as intolerant as some of the world's most authoritarian governments? It certainly sounds like it.

Folks jumping on the anti-Muslim bandwagon this summer might like to recall that America's founders stressed religious tolerance for a reason: Minority faiths deserve the same protection as all faiths, particularly because they are likely to be the first ones persecuted by the majority. Maybe that is why Thomas Jefferson bothered to read his own Koran. The father of the nation, George Washington, harbored no anxiety towards other religions on American soil. In one instance, he wrote this to his agent about hiring workmen at Mount Vernon: "If they be good workmen, they may be from Asia, Africa, or Europe; they may be Mohammedans, Jews, or Christians of any sect, or they may be Atheists."

Gingrich and his brethren are now trying to stir up new fears about Islam in America. His clique has little credibility, however.

In the build up to the Iraq War, Gingrich, like many in his set, missed the story inside that nation on how Saddam's own policies had kept the al Qaeda genie in the bottle. Gingrich wrote a column in USA Today, entitled: "Strike Sooner Than Later." He played a key role in driving the U.S. into a bungled invasion that was unrelated to the 9/11 attacks, cost at least one trillion in U.S. tax dollars and helped further the false impression that America was at war with Islam. Not surprisingly, as CNN's Peter Bergen later documented, in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, terrorist attacks around the world rose by a factor of 600 percent.

Now this discredited gang is warning Americans to be bold and courageous and step up to the threat of "Islamization" posed by the world's 1.2 billion Muslims. Gingrich claimed recently at the National Press Club that his own grandchildren live in fear of legions of suicide bombers anxious to invade American soil.

His real message: Brace yourself for endless confrontation. Never mind the motivations for Islamic terror and how America's own naïve actions in the Islamic realm helped create the Frankenstein we are facing abroad.

Both Gingrich and Geller have fertile ground to make political hay. Nearly half of all Americans believe that Muslims are prone to violence, according to recent polling data. Others openly doubt the loyalty of Muslim Americans. With the constant warnings on Fox News and other cable stations that we must watch our back abroad and at home, it is little wonder that so many Americans remain a bit terrified of the "other."

Americans need to take a deep breath. Not unlike fringe Christian groups, only a small percentage in the Islamic realm subscribe to any kind of violence at all. Islam is not creeping into American classrooms and undermining the way our children think. The very notion that we should fear this is reminiscent of Senator McCarthy's "red baiting" tactics.

In my researching my book, My Brother, My Enemy from Sahelian Africa through the Holy Land, South Asia and onto Indonesia, I discovered that it is the hyperbolic language in the West -- the use of such absurd phrases as "Islamo-facism" -- that helps stir the passions of young Muslims, many of them already disenfranchised by their own governments. Worse, when we pay lip-service to such talk, we are essentially elevating the fringe element within Islam to an undeserved level of international prominence. Indeed, Al Qaeda loves this language because it plays into their own "us versus them" propaganda cycle.

As for this "clash of civilizations" that Gingrich and Geller are pushing, our foes must be saying, "Bring it on!" It should be no wonder that when we go hunting for false specters, we create the kind of monsters we fear the most.

Fortunately, there is another direction -- the American way. Lest we be fooled again, there are encouraging signs out there. There is an expanding moderate middle in Islam; one that Americans and their politicians should be encouraging and paying far more attention to than the fringe. National polls in the largest Arab country, Egypt, for example, show that four of five Egyptians believe that democracy is a very good system of government.

Likewise, Americans should be wary of the damning message that it sends across the globe when leading American politicians like Gingrich argue to curtail their shared religious freedom, a cornerstone of our tolerant nation.

Sometimes, the most urgent truths are rolled up and hidden away in the most apparently trivial news. So if I tell you that Moody's, the leading credit rating agency, has downgraded Ireland's debt, it sounds pretty irrelevant. In fact, if you unwrap and decode this story, you'll discover the reason why you are going to be more likely to lose your job or your home soon, if Obama doesn't unleash a new starbust of stimulus soon, or if the Republicans win.

The British finance minister, George Osborne, visited Ireland a few years ago to say it was a "shining example" for Britain to mimic. When the recession hit, the country's government immediately applied the medicine Cameron and Osborne are now imposing on Britain. They argued that when the economy withers, the government needs to react like any responsible family and cut spending to pay down its debt. They warned that if they didn't do it fast, the international bond market would charge Ireland more for its liabilities, and the debt burden would become intolerable. Better to purge now, so you can get back to fiscal health as soon as possible. "Look and learn from across the Irish Sea," Osborne said.

So they have brought this vision home. Britain shows what sudden cuts to pay down the deficit look like. Prime Minister David Cameron is ordering cuts of 25 to 40 percent in almost all departments. To give you a sense of how drastic this is: arch-Conservative Margaret Thatcher actually increased public spending by 1.1 percent in real terms per year.

The consequences? The National Housing Federation says the number of homeless people will double as a result of their slashing of housing benefit. Half a million children living below the poverty line are having free school meals - the only nutritious meal of the day for many - cancelled. The unemployed are having £6.50 knocked off the £65 a week they have to live on. Ian Duncan Smith says "tons of elderly people" are going to be forced out of their "underoccupied" apartments in run-down housing projects. The list is long enough for a dozen columns. One minister recently told the Times the rationale behind it off-the-record: "The undeserving poor," he said, "are undeserving."

Meanwhile, a recent Financial Times headline summarised the situation at the other end of the economic heap: "Well-paid breathe collective sigh of relief."

Before power, Cameron promised his cuts would not affect "frontline" services, but only the "backroom" and "waste". Now hospital bosses have drawn up plans to slash hip operations, cataract surgery, and the number of acute hospital beds. All frontline services are facing similar shut-downs. A detailed study for Oxford University led by Dr David Stuckler calculates that there will be 38,000 premature deaths over the next decade as a result of all this - due to the reduced healthcare, dismantled services for the elderly and vulnerable children, increased suicides, and so on.

The Republicans want to bring this vision from Ireland and Britain to the US. They say - yes, this is rough, yes, it hurts, but it is for a necessary purpose. If we don't do it, the bond markets will downgrade our debt and we will be even worse off. Only austerity can hold off the prospect of a debt crisis.

So let's return to the truth buried in that little story on the financial pages. Ireland has been doing exactly what the Republicans urge, with a two year headstart. What are the results? Last week, a study by the International Monetary Fund - nobody's idea of a left-wing pressure group - found that country's economic collapse now "exceeds that being faced by any other advanced economy, and matches episodes of the most severe economic distress [anywhere] in post-World War Two history."

Why? During a recession, ordinary consumers quite sensibly cut back and spend less. But if the government does the same, it means nobody is spending. This is bad enough for all the people who suffer immediately: the swelling army of the unemployed, the repossessed, the abandoned. But it turns out it makes its original goal - paying off the debt - impossible too. As the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz explains: "If you introduce austerity measures, the amount you can raise in tax falls, and welfare payments go up - so you don't have enough money to pay your debts anyway."

That's why the bond markets have turned on Ireland. The country introduced austerity to pay off their debts - and the austerity killed their economy, making it impossible to pay off their debts in any case. It was self-defeating. So introducing all these cuts doesn't only inflict misery: it doesn't even achieve its professed goal.

Why would Republicans choose this as a model to copy? Another Nobel Prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman, writes this deficit hawkery "isn't based on either evidence or careful analysis... What sounds like hard-headed realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy." Krugman points out that they incessantly warn us "invisible bond vigilantes" will beat us up if we don't cut, cut, cut - when the real bond market is beating up the people who have cut and left their economies to bleed out.

In 2010, to preach austerity as the solution to depression is the equivalent of drilling holes in your head to cure your migraine, while dismissing aspirin as for wusses. It's a dogma, chosen because it fits with the slash-the-state instincts they learned as privileged young men in their 1980s champagne-dream.

Krugman, like most economists, says there is only one real way out. When consumer spending collapses, governments need to borrow and spend to prevent a depression - and then pay off the debt from the proceeds of growth once we have brought the good times back. It's revealing that the countries that have done this hardest and fastest - like South Korea, which spent a fortune on employing people to green the country's infrastructure - have been the first to pull out of this recession, while the countries glugging Republican-juice have sunk deeper into the gloop.

Yet few people outside economics are making a full-throated defence of stimulus spending as an urgent moral cause. We need to say it loud: the choice today is between a deficit and a depression. It is immoral not to borrow and spend when it could revive the economy and prevent all these lives being written off. I remember what happened to some of my relatives in the eighties. The children who are supposedly being protected from the cost of the debt a generation from now need, in reality, to be protected today - from their parents becoming jobless and depressed, their homes being repossessed, and their schools and hospitals being chronically underfunded.

None of this has to happen. The more fuss ordinary citizens make - the more we demand the axe is put away, and replaced with jump-leads for the economy - the less leeway the government will have for self-defeating cuts. But so far, the loudest citizens' movement has been the lunacy of the tea party, demanding the economy be Herbert Hoovered up. Why is the fight-back so tepid? Why are so many people limply waiting for the disaster to worsen?

Here's a financial tip to leave you with. If you hold any bonds in swaggering Deficit Hawkery, sell. They are about to slip from the AAA standard accorded by the right-wing press to junk status out here in the real world.

Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent. To read more of his articles, click here or here.

To read his latest article for Slate, click here

To reduce debt, France has announced the sale of State assets.

Paradoxically, these sales will achieve the opposite effect and increase the overall indebtedness of France. Since any buyer of these assets will do so with borrowed money and the money they borrow will come from the over-indebted banking system that had to be recently bailed out by the State.

In other words, the loans used to make the asset purchases will end up right back on the French government's balance sheet.

The same ricochet debt accumulation is playing out in most of the industrialized world as countries look for ways to cut debts after the bailouts of 2009 have failed to generate any inflation, wage growth or pick up in GDP.

The problem is lack of transparency. The banks and their proxy, the various governments who serve them around the world, need to have a thorough accounting of all the debts held on their balance sheets.

Some suspect there is another 50 trillion in bad debts held off the balance sheets of banks and governments yet to be disclosed.

A few weeks ago, Britain announced a package of austerity measures to address the country's 800 billion pound debt problem. The banks and government followed this up with an announcement of a 'discovery' of five trillion pounds of debt they had overlooked (equaling 500% of GDP).

The government in Britain says they will be selling assets to pay down debt. Since no one has cash to pay for these assets, the loans needed to make the purchases will come from the State owned banks and the debts will end up where they came from; but bigger, since the bankers in the UK involved in the deals will pad the transaction with fees that end up increasing the debt (and their bonuses).

Meanwhile, the Bank of England will keep interest rates near zero so that any increase in the debts won't incur any noticeable increase in debt service costs. Until such time as it does.

As long as interest rates stay near zero the debt expansion cycle -- masked as asset sales -- will continue to grow and the interest costs associated with these debts will continue to make up a greater percentage of GDP. Naturally, the government's plan to pay the additional interest cost is borrow more money.