It’s amazing what you can learn reading the Washington Post. Today its lead editorial told readers that reducing the annual cost of living adjustment for Social Security by 0.3 percentage points won’t hurt. This would come as news to most seniors who rely on Social Security for most of their income.

On the monumental issue of how to deal with rising health care costs, there are no two political leaders in America whose actions are more diametrically opposed than Democratic Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin and Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. Ryan wants to privatize Medicare, destroying America’s extremely popular and effective single-payer system for older Americans, while Shumlin is working to expand the benefits of single-payer health insurance to everyone. The national Democratic Party will soon have to decide which of these leaders’ diverging paths they intend to follow.

McConnell wants Democrats to bail out the GOP for their bad decision on the Ryan budget. If Democrats agree to a deal with big Medicare cuts, the political potency of running against the Ryan budget largely dissipates.

The big rush to extend PATRIOT is about making sure this geolocation tracking doesn’t shut down over the Memorial Day weekend.

A federal judge has ruled that a ban on direct corporate giving to candidates is unconstitutional, in a case that will probably filter up to the Supreme Court, which needless to say has not been a great ally for campaign finance types. The judge, James Cacheris, used the Citizens United ruling on corporate giving as his basis. But this takes it a step further, by saying that direct corporate donations to candidates are permissible, rather than corporate spending to outside groups.

Rep. Grayson will be offering a presentation on how the mal-distribution of income and wealth have caused the chronic federal deficit, which has led to a series of bubbles, crashes, and other structural economic problems. He will also address how progressive action is necessary in order to fix the problem.

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If you needed any additional evidence that the Republican Party is a quasi-religious organization that no longer relies on empirical evidence in forming its policy positions, here’s Paul Ryan (R-WI) explaining why he wants to destroy Medicare to keep taxes low for millionaires.

Sec. Gates–who does have his future to think about, after all–wants to make sure his successors (or at least his future employers) understand. No more defense contractors need get tossed into the terrible winepress of budget austerity–there are plenty of fighting folks, ready for trampling.

Sanders went so far as to accuse Gensler of breaking the law for not implementing the Dodd-Frank regulation on position limits. He cited the now well-worn quote by Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, that the price of oil under regular market conditions should be $60-$70 a barrel (it’s currently trading at around $100). Sanders also cited the recent lawsuits from the CFTC against Parnon Energy, Arcadia Petroleum and Arcadia Energy for driving up prices during the spike of 2008, and stated that the same conditions exist today.

The Tea-GOP has become so looney on the debt limit issue that their relying on paid hacks to tell us there’s no problem from refusing to raise the debt limit. Their latest theory: “It’s okay to drive the car off a cliff, because we can always let the bond holders jump out first.”