Watch It: White House Explains Tax Cut Extension Plan in 120 Seconds

Economist Austan Goolsbee, who this month was named White House Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, took to the White House White Board to explain why the Obama Administration supports extending the Bush-era tax cuts for middle class Americans, but wants to let tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers expire as scheduled.

As a former economics writer for The New York Times and Slate, and a television veteran who has appeared on the History Channel, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report, Goolsbee is known for his knack for delivering complex economic information in simple terms, and I think he shows it in this video.

Here's hoping the White House employs Goolsbee to explain more economic issues ASAP. I'd love to see a White House White Board episode demonstrating, for example, how a shift to renewable energy would benefit the economy.

CNN, sexism and the detestable James O'Keefe

In case you've forgotten (and I truly wish I could), James O'Keefe is that odious little Breitbart protégé with a penchant for setting up people, organizations and the general public with false narratives staged in advance. His latest borders on an effort to sexually harass and possibly assault a CNN reporter, of all things.

Abbie Boudreau is an attractive, young CNN reporter who had an assignment: To report on the young conservative 'movement'. I have an issue with their framing and focus, but that's a topic for another post.

James O'Keefe hatched a plan to "punk" Boudreau with props like strawberries, dildoes Viagra and stamina pills. Here's a one-paragraph description of the "plan":

Instead, I've decided to have a little fun. Instead of giving her a serious interview, I'm going to punk CNN. Abbie has been trying to seduce me to use me, in order to spin a lie about me. So, I'm going to seduce her, on camera, to use her for a video. This bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five will get a taste of her own medicine, she'll get seduced on camera and you'll get to see the awkwardness and the aftermath.

My first thought after reading this plan was that James O'Keefe has some strange reading material. I shudder to think what his video consumption is. But deeper than that -- far deeper -- is his cynical, ugly attitude about women. This is a guy who strikes me as someone who doesn't have the first clue about what women are really about, and certainly has no respect for them. In the 80's he would have been the lounge lizard hitting on every woman in the room while harboring fantasies about taking three of them home at once. He's someone who has no problem lying to anyone and everyone who challenges him.

He's the date rapist type you're glad you never encountered when you were single.

MOMocrats Interview: Jim Meffert

Last week MOMocrats writer Jaelithe Judy had the chance to speak with Jim Meffert, a Democrat running for Congress in Minnesota's Third District against incumbent Republican Erik Paulsen, who was elected in 2008.

A former president of the Minnesota State PTA Board, a member of the P-20 Partnership for Education, and the the executive director of the Minnesota Optometric Association, Jim Meffert is also a father of three. 

Listen to the interview below, or read the transcript. 

Meffert_Interview_MOMocrats

Jim Meffert: I'm going to get get my wife hooked up with you guys.

Jaelithe Judy: That's great.

She's a professional musician — clarinetist — and has extremely strong opinions, on everything! Which is fantastic. And frankly, about a year ago when we were looking at getting into this, she and I would gauge where we were at with getting into the race. She was at 70% on day one; I was at about 50%. And she said, you've got to get out and do this. So she would be great to connect with.

We definitely like opinionated women at MOMocrats.

And I tell you, I don't know if you know any of my background, but, being on the board of the state PTA, and I was chair of a group called the Minnesota Children's Platform Coalition, and worked with Every Child Matters, and so I have spent my entire, my volunteer career, around strong women trying to do the same that you're doing — trying to get families involved, trying to talk about how we help families and kids, talking about parents' involvement in schools. So, anything that I can do to help you guys also, to broaden the audience and broaden the discussion, let me know, because we've got to use campaigns to do that too.

Well thanks, I appreciate that! Well, I have some questions for you if you're ready.

GO WATCH THIS TONIGHT -- 9500 Liberty: A Documentary on Immigration Reform, on MTV Networks Tonight

TONIGHT 9500 LIBERTY premieres on MTV Networks
Join filmmakers Eric Byler and Annabel Park for webcast Q&A

[Reprint of press kit materials describing the films.]

SB 1070, the racial profiling law in Arizona, has been tried once before, and it failed.

Please tune in tonight for the world television premiere of the film, "9500 Liberty" at 8 PM Eastern time, and 8 PM Pacific time on MTV 2, MTV U, and MTV Tr3s (with Spanish subtitles).

"9500 Liberty" provides a blueprint for how ordinary citizens can join together across party lines to oppose extremism. We hope our film will incite civility and make room for progress, not just the immigration issue, but on issues involving the responsible practice of democracy.

WORLD TELEVISION PREMIERE
Sunday Sept. 26th
8 PM ET, 8 PM PT on
MTV 2, MTV U, & MTV Tr3s (with Spanish subtitles)

Ceci n'est pas une Sarah Palin Presidential Campaign Video

So today I saw this:

That swelling music. Those billowing flags. Those crowds of adoring, hopeful followers. That leader's hair, blowing gently in the winds of change . . . is it any wonder the political punditsphere has been atwitter all day about this latest SarahPAC video's strong resemblance to a campaign ad? A campaign ad of the presidential persuasion?

Sure, the video is titled "Tea Party" not "Sarah Palin 2012" but for a video ostensibly about a grassroots populist movement there sure are an awful lot of dramatic, compelling shots of an individual. Shots that happen to capture said individual being adored by crowds and speaking authoritatively at podiums. 

And then there's that one shot of a guy wearing a Vets4Sarah.net t-shirt and holding a sign that reads VOTE.

I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'.  

Dear Women Who Shop at Wal-Mart: We Need More Advocates in Congress, Wouldn't You Agree?

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post wrote a post called "Tough Love for Obama." It's a quick read.

Marcus writes:

I spent a fascinating evening last week listening via video hookup to focus groups, 30 women in all, in three battleground states: Pennsylvania, Missouri and Colorado. These were, literally, Wal-Mart shoppers -- the retail giant sponsored the discussions -- screened to exclude committed partisans of the left or right and split evenly between 2008 supporters of Obama and John McCain.

Insurers Announce End of Child-Only Insurance Policies

If you think this week is a time for celebrating as the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act going into effect this week, think again.  For you skeptics (myself included!), today comes the announcement from several major insurers that they will drop certain policies that would cover children who have pre-existing conditions rather than comply with the new law and lose money for their shareholders.

Yeah, that's just the kind of country we apparently live in.  I'm waiting for the next shoe to drop in the not-entirely-unexpected insurance story I call, "Is Anyone Surprised?"

Read more about it:

Washington Post: Some Insurers Halt New Child-only Policies

Wall Street Journal: Some U.S. Health Insurers To Stop Selling Child-Policies

NPR: Health Insurers Skirt New Requirements

Forbes: Do Health Insurers Have a Moral Obligation to Sick Children?

Politics Daily: On 6-Month B-day of Health Law, Will Patient Protection Win it Some Love?

Image by Joanne aka PunditMom.

Go Read It: Elizabeth Warren, Newly Appointed to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Wrote a piece for Blogher on Warren's appointment by President Obama. It's just the facts, ma'am.

But because we're all about good times here at MOMocrats, here's a little country-rap to celebrate in your living room. "Stand up if you feel me!"

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

10Questions for 2010: You Ask the Candidates, They Respond

You're probably starting to think about the November 2010 midterm elections now. Have you ever complained about how bad some moderated candidate debates were? Questions that made no sense or had nothing to do with your concerns, or responses that wandered off into set talking points? If you live in one of these 11 states--Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania--you can put questions directly to candidates who'll represent you and the people in your district.

Through a partnership with our friends over at the Personal Democracy Forum, MOMocrats.com readers can now ask questions of candidates in our local races via text or video. Here's how 10Questions.com works:

Anyone can post a question (video or text), anyone can vote those up or down (one vote per question per IP address), anyone can embed a question, a race, a state, or the entire country via a fully functional widget, on any website they want. To post or vote on a question, you just need a Google Account, as the site is powered by a souped-up version of the Google Moderator question platform (and for which we are grateful to our technology partners Google and YouTube.) No personal user information is being retained, though the site will allow anyone to view where questions and votes are coming from geographically, and to track the daily up-down voting on any question.

If you live in one of these 11 states, you can urge others to vote up your questions with a click at 10Questions.com through September 21, and then the questions with the highest number of votes will be put to the candidate. They'll issue a video response on October 14 which will be posted on YouTube.

Then, you can vote on and discuss whether or not you thought the candidate answered the question.

This puts you in charge instead of the pundits. Nice change of pace, right?

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

GO READ IT Bush Economists, Et Al Agree: Tax Cuts, Trickle Down Economics Did Not Work

Look...the tax cuts didn't work and in fact had a detrimental effect on the economy. I know we all hoped for different, and giving Bush and his advisors benefit of the doubt, I think they meant well, but even THEY ADMIT THEY MADE A MISTAKE. Don't be a statistic on being stuck in a misperception. I know you're too smart for that. We have bipartisan agreement on this one. Here's some details:

1. The Atlantic.com: Hey Mitch McConnell, Bush Economists Said Tax Cuts Did Grow the Deficit

2. New York Times: Greenspan Calls for Repeal of All the Bush Tax Cuts

3. Alan Greenspan says “Trickle Down” Reaganomics failed VIDEO

It's not working, it didn't work. Let it expire. Obama has the right of it, and hopefully the Right will grasp that.