The political magazine with a full cup of Coffee and a few polling numbers in between the refills.

La revista política con una taza llena de café y algunos números de las encuestas entre las recargas.

We talked with  Jerry last night on a wide range of subjects from the small business person and  internet monopolies like Verizon wireless,Rush Limbaugh and the Supreme Court battle,health care reform and individual mandate,  the 2012 election the GOP vs President Obama and Medicare.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC OPPOSITES: Voters in Tuesday's Maryland and Wisconsin primaries are socio-economic foils.

In Maryland, nearly half of voters have family incomes of $100,000 or more annually. That's the highest level of any state where an exit or entrance poll has been conducted this cycle. In Wisconsin, just 26 percent have incomes at that level. And 57 percent of Maryland's Republican voters are college graduates, while the same share in Wisconsin lack a college degree.AP

In an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors President Obama delivered common sense rebuke of the Ryan budget plan, charging that his GOP  seek to impose a radical vision of Class Warfare("social Darwinism"  on the 99%.

The budget plan approved by the Republican-led House last week, which would slash $5.3 trillion over the next decade through deep cuts in entitlements and agency spending, as “so far to the right, it makes the Contract with America look like the New Deal.”

Our show is taken from the Opinion page of New York Time;"Tyer and Trayvon".

Heidi M. Hurd, a professor who comingles law and philosophy, wrote an article entitled “Why Liberals Should Hate ‘Hate Crime Legislation.’ ” The thesis sounded contrarian; hate crime laws evolved out of a great liberal cause — civil rights — and have been propelled by activists and politicians most of us would call liberal. Hurd, though she is a Democrat, was referring not to the contemporary political left but to traditional, John-Locke-and-John-Stuart-Mill liberalism, which holds that the state is licensed to temper bad behavior, not to perfect human nature. Hate crime laws, she wrote, crossed that line: “The law now regulates not only what we do, but who we are.”.Bias laws are widely accepted. They are understandable. They are probably here to stay. But they seem to me a costly form of sanctimony.

Bill Keller is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times and writes for The New York Times Magazine. His column appears on alternate Mondays.From July 2003 until September 2011, he was the executive editor of The Times, presiding over the newsroom

Frances Fox Piven, the City University of New York sociologist best known for her work on the  Poor People's Movements (which led to her being centre piece  Glenn Beck the Right-wing attack dog), turned her attention last week to an oft-repeated question: "Can American labor recover?" Her short answer was might be: Maybe (I hope so), but not on its own, and not without a push from outside.

Piven's take on the labor movement is not peculiar to her alone, but rather is emblematic of a section of the left, academic and otherwise. Which I guess is not surprising, given the distance between the world of the university and the world of working people.

In any case, the left, including the academic left, should be knowledgeable about the labor movement. It should hail and join its initiatives.

This doesn't preclude criticism, but it should be done in a constructive, unifying, and partisan way. It should be always mindful not only of the very difficult circumstances in which labor fights, but also the necessary role that it will play in any progressive and socialist thrust in U.S. politics.Sam Webb People's World

The past week's political events that help shape the American body politic.

Acontecimientos políticos de la semana pasada que ayudan a conformar el cuerpo político estadounidense.

The political magazine with a full cup of Coffee and a few polling numbers in between the refills.

La revista política con una taza llena de café y algunos números de las encuestas entre las recargas.

By a mostly party-line vote, the House of Representatives approved Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” budget resolution today by a count of 228-191, slashing trillions of dollars in federal spending over the next decade, but inflaming Congressional Democrats for proposing controversial reforms to programs like Medicare.

The measure is doomed in the Senate , ABC News

Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force(Wikipedia)

The 26 state  using the “coercion theory,”argue  that federal Medicaid funding they rely on will be taken away if the states do not agree with this portion of the law.