This is indeed typical. How long has it been that the media has been criticizing the Democrats for not having a plan? How many times have you heard the criticism that the Democrats simply don’t offer any alternatives, that they aren’t saying anything? And to most people, it sounds true because they don’t hear what the Democrats are saying.

But that’s not because the Democrats aren’t saying anything. It’s because the media isn’t reporting what they’re saying.

Just tonight, all nine Democratic women Senators appeared on the Larry King Live show, discussing a set of policies and proposals they are and have been offering.

How is this covered in the media? Nada. Not even a quick note with bullet points. The only appreciable mention of the appearance at all that I could find was this right-wing rag, whining that “Larry King Gives Free Campaign Hour To Female Senate Democrats.”

In the meantime, the Democrats are indeed trying to fight for Americans. While a few sided with the Republicans on the move to eradicate state-by-state food warning label requirements, a large cadre of Democrats is trying to making noise (scroll down for story), insisting that the states be allowed the right to make food sellers in their states warn their citizens of dangers that the federal government is failing to do. Republicans are trying to cave in to the food corps. and force the states to follow soft, wishy-washy federal standards, which fail to report possibly critical dangers in the foods we buy. Soon, your food labels might not be telling you all you need to know. Guess who’s not reporting this to you?

Another Democratic issue: the minimum wage. Right now, the minimum wage has less buying power than it has had in fifty years, and it has not been raised once in the past decade. And yet Republicans are still trying to block it. Worse than that: in a jobless recovery where poor people are being hit hard and wealthy people are doing well, the House Republicans are denying a vote on a minimum wage hike at the very same time they are pushing a vote to reduce the estate tax! What is this, the tenth consecutive tax cut for millionaires? They aren’t even trying any more to pretend to give a crumb to the middle class so they can falsely claim it’s really going to benefit regular people.

Currently, the estate tax only kicks on for non-farmers who have more than $2 million in assets (that goes up to $3.5 million in 2009), and that’s just for individuals (double that for couples). Even then it only begins at a very low effective rate–the $2/$4 million is an exemption and is not touched. This (yet another) Republican millionaire tax cut would up the minimum individual exemption to $5 million (presumably $10 million for couples), would tie the exemption to inflation (which they absolutely refuse to do with the minimum wage!), and would cut the tax rate after the exemption. All this would cost $283 billion–and that’s the conservative estimate. The real long-term cost could be as much as $800 billion.

Meanwhile, honest, hard-working Americans, who haven’t had massive multiple trillion-dollar tax cuts already, and who aren’t worth anything near $2 million because they’re getting paid crap, are working their asses off at three jobs each and still are fighting to stay above the poverty line. Their pay for real work is not tied to inflation, and the GOP wants to keep it that way.

How perverted can the Republicans get?

And how long before the media starts reporting on the alternative the Democrats have been offering all this time?