heal

The Tea Party congresspeople are surging into Washington, bringing to their new majority calls not only to overturn health care reform but to ban earmarks and to generally stall major legislation on the Democrats' agenda. ; Meanwhile, there seems to be little coming out from Obama and most of the Democrats on what is exactly on their agenda for the next two years.So what are they thinking? David Corn of Mother Jones doesn't quite know either, but he joins us via Skype from D.C. anyway to give us his thoughts on Tea Party politicians, the earmark process, and other issues from inside the Beltway.Deficits, deficits, deficits. That's all we hear about lately. But in case Dean Baker's explanation of the deficit problem this week was just a little too complicated, he and his colleagues at the Center for Economic and Policy Research have created this video, via xtranormal, to break it down to really simple terms: it's the healthcare.The times are difficult and the challenges are great. But a sober analysis of our predicament suggests that there are accomplishments to be celebrated and lessons to be learned from the intense period of history we have just lived through that can inform a comeback strategy. As important as developing such a strategy will be upholding the commitments that have always nurtured the progressive spirit: to resist despair, to press on in times of uncertainty and to take risks to make a path forward.So wrote Gara LaMarche and Deepak Bhargava in The Nation, right before the election, laying out a strategy for progressive success in the wake of Republican likely victories. Now that we know what the political landscape looks like, we asked Gara to join us in studio to give us some ideas of what we can do to fight a reenergized, organized right. Finally, the New York Times is willing to call out torture--after the British government decides to pay out large sums to former Guantanamo detainees. Laura has some thoughts.