The Wisconsin protests and the re-emergence of the American working class

"The financial aristocracy that rules America is every bit as removed from and hostile to masses of working people as the dictatorial regime that was headed by President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. In the face of the worst economic crisis in generations—as millions lost their jobs, homes, and incomes—no measures were taken to help working people. Instead, trillions of dollars in public funds were handed over, no questions asked, to Wall Street and a financial elite whose reckless speculation had triggered the crisis in the first place."

Read more of:The Wisconsin protests and the re-emergence of the American working class @ wsws.org

Richard Trumka: This Isn't Deficit Control. It's Assault.

"No job safety inspections while inspectors are furloughed for up to three months. No food safety inspections while inspectors are off the job for more than a month. Ten thousand teachers and aides cut from struggling schools and 7,000 special education teachers and staff gone. State and local job training and employment services phased out for up to 8 million workers. Medicare and Social Security operations crippled. Fewer local police officers. Wall Street reform stymied. Policing of the financial practices that sank our economy gutted. More than 340,000 transportation jobs killed."

"This isn't "fiscal responsibility" or "deficit control." It's about the most bald-faced assault on America's middle class I've ever seen -- and clear political payback to CEOs who poured millions into the 2010 elections. CEOs don't like job safety regulations, so the politicians they elected are trying to cut the funding and fire the inspectors. CEOs don't want environmental safeguards, energy improvements or curbs on health insurance companies, so their politicians are pushing to just defund the programs.

The team of Wall Street CEOs and the politicians they support dug a massive deficit hole by tanking the economy and handing massive tax cuts to the very rich. Now they're throwing the middle class into that hole and shoveling on the dirt."

Read more of: Richard Trumka: This Isn't Deficit Control. It's Assault @ Huffington Post

A Jefferson Quote

From a friend on Facebook...
Bill O'Neill
“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” - Thomas Jefferson, 1816

Fact-checking Obama's State of the Union speech

Looks like President Obama did a nice job with his State-of-the-Union Speech. And his talking points seem to have stood up to independent fact-checking. See just how well the President did at: St. Petersburg Times' (2009 Pulitzer Prize Winner) PolitiFact

Group: Supreme Court justices ‘participated in political strategy sessions’ before Citizens United

Remember the "Citizens United" case where the Supreme Court gave corporations the same rights as individuals? It's back...

Read more at: Raw Story

Obama Ignores Eisenhower at Country's, World's Peril

"On January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his prophetic warning about the military-industrial complex, anticipating the increased political, economic, military and even cultural influence of the Pentagon and its allies. Several weeks earlier, he had privately told his senior advisers in the Oval Office, 'God help this country when someone sits in this chair who doesn't know the military as well as I do.' Several months after his inauguration in 1953, he warned against warfare that had 'humanity hanging from a cross of iron.'"

Read more about this prescient statement at: Truthout

What an Originalist United States Might Look Like

More fun discussing Justice(?) Scalia...

"Justice Antonin Scalia, the court’s leading originalist, has agreed to address the House Tea Party caucus on the separation of powers. He has also delivered speeches recently outlining his original understanding of the Constitution in areas like sex equality and the death penalty."

Hear more about Justice Scalia from Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University and the legal affairs editor of The New Republic in NYTimes.com "Week in Review"

Republican Jesus

“Looking for Mr. Theocracy” or “How I Learned to Stop Thinking for Myself and Just Trust Republican Jesus.”

By Justin “filthy liberal scum” Rosario (Ed. note: *his* words, not ours...)

"When I was a kid, I was taught that the Pilgrims fled to the New World to escape religious persecution. Somewhere in there, I learned that we don’t have a national religion and people were free to practice whatever religion they wanted. That was kind of it as far as religion went in my history classes and overall education."

Read more about the *mysterious ways* of "Republican Jesus" at: addictinginfo.org

Republican Representatives Miss Swearing In, Vote Anyway

Two Republican congressmen missed the House swearing-in ceremony today because they were at a party. But they decided to cast some votes anyway, even though that's *against the Constitution.*

Read more on Republican hypocrisy at: Gawker.com

Dennis Kucinich Challenges Republicans On Finding Government “Waste” Everywhere But Bloated Military Budget

"The GOP wants to slash a few hundred billion dollars in spending. Dennis Kucinich wants to know why they aren't looking squarely at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
(from CAMPAIGN CORNER: A HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL CAMPAIGNERS)

More details at: SunState Activist

House GOP Ends Floor Voting Rights For Delegates

One of the first acts of the new Republican-controlled House is to take away the floor voting rights of six delegates representing areas such as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa.

Five of those delegates are Democrats, while one, from the Northern Marianas Islands, is an independent.

Read more at: Huffington Post

Scalia: Women Don't Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination

"The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia"

Read the rest of what this misogynistic meathead has to say at Huffington Post

Major Health Care Reforms Take Effect January 1

"...two of the new health care law's most significant reforms take effect..."

"Starting on New Year's Day, insurance companies will have to spend at least 80 percent of the revenues they receive from premiums on actual health care. Not on salaries or overhead."

"Senior citizens -- a demographic that's skeptical of the bill -- will see real benefits. In 2011, the law will begin to close the Medicare Part D coverage gap -- the infamous 'donut hole.' "

Find out more at: Talking Points Memo

2011: Calling Time on Capitalism

"Recent decades have seen a massive redistribution of wealth, imposing the cost of successive crises on the poorest. Enough!"

"...recovery noise distracts from a more basic failure of our economic system: its fundamental instability. Recurring "downturns" – which neither private nor government actions have ever managed to prevent – impose massive costs on society. They plunge millions of effective, productive workers into unemployment and resulting personal, family and community disasters. Governments tap the collective purses of their nations chiefly to rescue just those private capitalists who were major contributors to the crisis and whose wealth insulates them from the crisis' worst effects.

Then, governments turn on their people to impose austerities (cutbacks in social programs, social security, etc) needed to restore government budgets busted by that rescue's huge costs. Like someone convicted of murdering his parents who demands leniency as an orphan, corporate America demands conservative government and austerity on the grounds of excessive budget deficits. Mainstream media and politicians take those corporate demands seriously, reminding us who controls whom."

Read the entire article at: Common Dreams

Wikileaks cable reveals U.S. conspired to retaliate against European nations if they resisted GMOs

"The latest batch of diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks reveals what can only be characterized as a U.S.-led conspiracy to force GMOs onto European countries by making those countries pay a steep price if they resist."

"We’ve been saying for years that the United States government is joined at the hip with Monsanto and pushing GMOs as part of Monsanto’s agenda on the rest of the world. This lays bare the mechanics of that effort. We have Craig Stapleton, the former ambassador to France, specifically asking the U.S. government to retaliate and cause some harm throughout the European Union."

Learn more at: NaturalNews.com