Reducing our spending on overseas military commitments is the deficit reduction idea that has the broadest public support across all partisan groups, according to new Pew Research Center poll. Solid majorities of regular Democrats, Republicans and independents all want to see America stop wasting so much money on foreign military commitments.

See if you can spot what explanations for slow employment AREN’T in this MSNBC story.

If I had a nit to pick with Obama’s deficit reduction plan, it’s that he’s framing increasing taxes on the wealthy in the service of reducing the deficit — traditionally a Republican goal — rather around the idea that progressive taxation builds a healthier democracy. But he’s on the right track.

How do I know? Because David Brooks hates it.

Mayor Bloomberg fearmongers about unemployment instead of the so-called “debt crisis.” He also seems to suggest that maybe “shared sacrifice” really should be, y’know, shared.

A large plurality of Americans, 39 percent, say unemployment is the most important problem facing the country today. “Unemployment” recently managed to take the top spot away from the issue of “the economy in general” in Gallup’s polling.

This weekend, the public will mourn a site of loss, recasting the painful memories and haunting fears that still hover over the aftermath at Ground Zero. But the people who worked and breathed that tragedy in the days and months following September 11 won’t be at the primary commemoration ceremony for the families of victims. The Mayor’s decision to limit the attendees by excluding the 9/11 first responders is an unnerving metaphor for an unhealed scar of 9/11. Many of the rescue and recovery workers who labored at Ground Zero have been plagued by a metastasizing medical crisis, aggravated by chronic political failure.

The stark realities of the American economy show the political and economic elites sending the country in the wrong direction, destroying the strongest economy and world history. The American people know better and could rule better than the elites. It is time for Americans to organize and mobilize to take power, http://october2011.org.

The US economy managed to create virtually zero jobs during August, leaving the unemployment rate at 9.1 percent. And revised estimates lowered the number of jobs created in July. With the GOP Congress and the Obama White House still paralyzed by mindless deficit hysteria and unwilling to fund any credible effort to create jobs, the economy is stalled.

Hey what do you know? We actually had a modest gain in jobs this last month. The economy gained 117,000 jobs according the statistics released this morning. That is actually better than the number that analysts were predicting, which was around 85,000.

Unfortunately that is all the good news there is on this. The economy needs 150,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with the rate of population growth, so if you are a glass half empty person, we came up 33,000 jobs short of what we needed to break even.

So, make the President do it! Make him solve the problem and avoid a default! That is the best thing that progressives in Congress can do now to save the economy and begin to kill the current austerity mania that will destroy the futures of our children and Grandchildren.