The Congressional Progressive Caucus met with occupy representatives about legislation and also released today a new bill called the Restore the American Dream for the 99% Act, a combination of stimulative job creation measures, progressive taxation, a funding cut to draw down current wars and other measures popular with the mainstream of the country.

The biggest problem with the White House’s definitional strategy on the American Jobs Act was that Democrats didn’t really give it the full-throated support it needed to draw that contrast. By the end of last week, the White House was circling the wagons on that, and Democratic leaders stepped out to say that the jobs plan would have the support of the caucus. But those initial grumblings really hurt the unified message.

Are we on the way toward the same problem with the deficit reduction plan delivered today, similarly designed to draw contrast between taxes on millionaires or cuts to vital programs? So far, this looks a bit better.

There is now a deal, and Speaker Boehner needs Democratic votes to pass it because of his unruly and recalcitrant TeaParty membership, members of the Progressive Caucus must stop the deal. By stopping the deal at the last minute, the House Progressive Caucus forces President Obama to use his constitutional authority to ignore an illegal law that questions America’s public debt: the debt ceiling.

Kill the deal. Fourteen-four or Bust!

Call your member of Congress TODAY and tell them if they vote to cut Social Security benefits, you won’t vote for them in the next election.

Tell them you’re on to their little game of rotating villains.  Because they’re about to tear a big hole in the social safety net, in a way that will immediately hurt millions of senior citizens.  Nobody is interested in their cheap theatrics.

The honor for closing speaker tonight goes to progressive favorite Rep. Keith Ellison (DFL-MN). His remarks will be preceded by words from Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), and State Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). Cenk Uygur hosts. With music from Outernationals and Jill Sobule.

As I predicted in my liveblog, the most emotional moment of Peter King’s MUAC Hearing came when Keith Ellison saluted the sacrifice of Mohammed Salman Hamdani.

Chris Cillizza must have been the first one with his hand up in the Washington Post editorial meeting to volunteer to write the “Democrats in disarray” piece, about the Cordoba House project. He must have dialed with glee into all the campaigns and heard all the anguished responses. I particularly enjoyed the anonymous operative at the front of the article, who said, “Obama is right on substance but wrong on politics, and right now we need to focus on politics.”

Newsweek’s Mark Hosenball reports that Dianne Feinstein and other Senate Dems have accused the Department of Homeland Security’s spooks of using right wing propaganda to develop finished intelligence reports on Muslims.

Obviously it hasn’t run through the legislative wringer yet, but the Local Jobs For America Act proposed by House Education and Labor Secretary George Miller looks like an exceedingly good piece of policy. It would provides through the community development block grant program $100 billion dollars to create local jobs through state and municipal budgets. Miller claims he could create or save a million jobs with that money.

Nothing quite has the power of hearing the words contained in critical documents the torture era read out loud.