Someone should tell the President that if he wants to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits before defense spending, he’s not in any position to be giving advice to progressives.

Will you take time to go visit the office of your member of Congress or Senator tomorrow, and remind them that the American people overwhelmingly oppose cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits, and that you will will not support them in 2012 if they take part in doing that?

Public workers, up to seven hundred and fifty thousand teachers and civil servants, participated in a June 30 general strike called for in the United Kingdom after UK Parliament passed changes to pensions and retirement, specifically, increasing the amount an employee has to contribute.

What’s important to note is that AARP says it opposes cuts to Social Security as part of discussions on how to reduce the deficit. Notice they don’t say anything about opposing cuts to Social Security anywhere else — only where it pertains to deficit reduction. That’s a pretty weak defense, if you ask me.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported the AARP will support benefit cuts to Social Security. The AARP responded by saying that “our position has not changed on Social Security.” That’s actually true. For years, the AARP has been open to cutting Social Security benefits. Below is the proof of AARP’s clear willingness cut Social Security.

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.

Americans oppose any cuts to the country’s largest social safety net programs in order to reduce the federal deficit according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll (PDF). Two-thirds of Americans want no reductions in Social Security, 59 percent want no cuts to Medicare, and 53 percent want no reductions in Medicaid spending. On the other hand, 57 percent would support either major or minor reductions in defense spending to reduce the deficit.

Today begins the final two months of the Democratic majority in the House, and the large majority in the Senate. So what do Democrats plan to do with that majority, as well as their 255-178 spread in the House? Not a heck of a lot. The lame duck session will be dominated by talk about what to do on the Bush tax cuts, but there are some other issues that are likely to get taken up as well.

The freak show has come to staid, pedestrian Delaware, in the form of Christine O’Donnell and her litany of crazy. But while the national media and late-night comics focus on condoms, masturbation and witchcraft, the man who is likely to become the next Senator from the state has quietly gone about his business. I had the opportunity to talk with Coons about the race, the O’Donnell madness, and his specific positions on issues he could face shortly in the Senate.

It’s all well and good that the White House considers “stimulus” a dirty word among the public, and that they want to come up with some concoction that will get the needed votes. But with Republicans unlikely to agree with that, it’s both policy and political malpractice to come up with something so limp — something which economist Paul Krugman calls Rahmism.