Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

News in Brief
Afterbirthers Demand To See Obama's Placenta
WASHINGTON–In the continuing controversy surrounding the president's U.S. citizenship, a new fringe group informally known as "Afterbirthers" demanded Monday the authentication of Barack Obama's placenta from his time inside his mother's womb. "All we are asking is that the president produce a sample of his fetal membranes and vessels—preferably along with a photo of the crowning and delivery—and this will all be over," said former presidential candidate and Afterbirthers spokesman Alan Keyes, later adding that his organization would be willing to settle for a half-liter of maternal cord plasma. "To this day, the American people have not seen a cervical mucus plug, let alone one that has been signed and notarized by a state-certified Hawaiian health official. If the president was indeed born in the manner in which he claims, then where is his gestation sac?" Keyes said that if Obama did not soon produce at least a bloody bedsheet from his conception, Afterbirthers would push forward with efforts to exhume the president's deceased mother and inspect the corpse's pelvic bone and birth canal.
-Onion News

The Daily Show - Indecision 2012 - Premature Ecalculation
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Paul Ryan's 'Spinal Tap' Tour
He’s a Republican rock star in Washington. But the House Budget Committee chair’s tour of his home district is flopping as constituents say: "Hands Off Our Medicare!"
by John Nicols

Fund Manager: Without Unions And Pensions, America Faces A 'Horrendous' Future

Let’s Take a Hike
by Paul Krugman
If the federal budget and national deficit situation is so serious, shouldn’t we be raising taxes, not cutting them?

The Debt-Ceiling Doomsday Device by Paul Waldman
Republicans are essentially threatening to bring down the American economy if Democrats don't give them what they want.

G.O.P. Push in States to Deregulate Environment By LESLIE KAUFMAN Legislatures and governors are moving aggressively against conservation measures and regulations they see as too burdensome to business interests.

Democrats Can Win the Budget Debate By Joe Conason — Having hesitated to fully enter the fiscal fray, President Obama has at last delivered a plausible, principled response to the budgetary flimflams of the far right.

The grief the GOP just brought on itself House Republicans just went on record supporting a radical overhaul of Medicare. No wonder Democrats are smiling By Steve Kornacki

Raise America’s Taxes by Nicholas D. Kristof Let’s discuss the elephant in the room at the Capitol Building: We need higher taxes.

At Last: A President, Not a Ref By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — President Obama has finally decided to take his own side in the philosophical struggle that is the true engine of this nation’s budget debate.

The False Debate on the Debt America is stuck in an absurd debate over how deeply to cut teachers’ pensions and seniors’ medical benefits while preserving tax breaks for the superrich. by Robert Scheer

That's what it means to be a Democrat The president laid out a vision of optimism and equal opportunity that made Paul Ryan and the GOP look small by Joan Walsh

Now that was a speech Obama decries a GOP budget plan that would "end Medicare as we know it" in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich by Andrew Leonard

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

An Offensive Response to the Budget 'Crisis' Deficit hawks across the political spectrum and the tea partiers claim America is broke. It isn't. We can deal with our debt by taxing extreme concentrations of wealth. by Katrina vanden Heuvel

Donald Trump is losing it God help us, the man might be serious by Alex Pareene

50 Years Later, Republicans Still Trying To Kill Medicare Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed the obvious about Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare as we know it. The GOP plan to "voucherize" and inevitably ration Medicare would lead to future seniors paying more - much more - for health insurance. Of course, killing the wildly popular program which helped dramatically reduce poverty among the elderly is no problem for the Republicans. After all, they've been at it for 50 years.

Ludicrous and Cruel by Paul Krugman Once you stop listening to all the swooning and read the numbers, the Republican budget proposal looks like more voodoo economics. *

Donald Trump Strikes Back by Gail Collins In a Letter to the Editor, he covers all his issues with Barack Obama’s citizenship status. And he complains about being referred to as a “birther.”

Wisconsin Election Surprise: David Prosser Gains 7,500 Votes After 'Human Error' In Waukesha County. www.huffingtonpost.com This story has been updated. WASHINGTON -- In a dramatic turn of events on Thursday, the Waukesha County clerk announced that the vote total announced for Tuesday's Wisconsin Supreme Court race had been mistaken -- and that the corrected numbers changed the outcome of the entire election.

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Right’s War on Moderation By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — However the shutdown saga ends, the negotiating styles of the two sides ought to tell moderates that they can no longer pretend that the two ends of our politics are equally “extreme.”

Countdown to the Tea Party's comeuppance Tea Partiers want a shutdown and they may get one. But someone should remind them: It ain't 2010 anymore by Steve Kornacki *

The GOP's ideological budget fight will increase federal spending by Joan McCarter (Larry Downing/REUTERS)At the Wonk Room, Pat Garofalo and Igor Volsky take a closer look at the numerous riders the GOP is insisting on in their budget negotiations, and find out how much the ideological crusade the GOP is on in the name of deficit slashing would actually increase federal spending. *

Congressman endorses shutdown if GOP doesn't get everything it wants by Jed Lewison Indiana Republican Mike Pence says that if Democrats don't accept every single Republican demand for spending cuts, then he supports shutting down the federal government—and believes the Democrats will be blamed. *

Republicans thank Seniors for their vote by Proposing Medicare Plan Which makes Seniors Pay Most of crooksandliars.com Many Tea Party seniors came out and voted for Republicans in the mid term elections hoping for a John Birch-like solution to our economic problems. It's a little tough Goin' Galt at that age, but what they got as Dean Baker points out is an overhaul plan that destroys their sainted Medicare plan and puts the burden of the health care completely on their own income according to the CBO.

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret. By Joseph E. Stiglitz

Why the Reckless Republicans Win By Joe Conason — The Republican minority within a minority is getting its way because nobody else in Washington is reckless enough to promote a government shutdown. *