This week on CounterSpin: The White House's proposed military budget comes to some $534 billion dollars, and that's without including the costs of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. So why on earth are some saying Obama is "disarming America". We'll hear what this budget does and doesn't do from Miriam Pemberton, research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Also on Counterspin today, the polarization of America. If you watch Fox News or listen to talk radio, America has adopted socialism and the Department of Homeland Security is planning to crack down on conservative activism. But even in the so-called 'mainstream' corporate media there's talk of a dangerously polarized electorate, a far cry from the centrism the elite press corps prefers. Where are they getting this idea? Are media misreading the national mood? We'll talk about that with Terence Samuel, deputy editor of the online magazine The Root.

LINKS:
--Institute for Policy Studies

--"Polarization We Can Believe In," by Terence Samuel (theroot.com, 4/13/09)