by Robert Reich
Any day now, the Obama administration will announce $4.35 billion in extra federal funds for under-performing public schools. That’s fine, but relative to the financial squeeze all the nation’s public schools now face it’s a cruel joke.
The recession has ravaged state and local budgets, most of which aren’t allowed to run deficits. That’s [...]

Aaah the good old days. Remember waaaay back to 2007 when a couple of Google sellouts left to start this 140 character micro-blogging service called Twitter? We just laughed and laughed. Who on earth would tell someone, “I’m offline now and using the loo”? Are they crazy? Most “experts” (present company included) predicted this service [...]

by Robert Reich
Washington is paralyzed by snow and partisanship. Nothing is getting done – even as the Great Recession pulls more Americans into its maw.
In the midst of this paralysis, the President was asked about the giant pay packages of Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase & Co. ($17 mullion for 2009) and Lloyd [...]

by Paul Kiel, ProPublica
On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Lesa Herron of Santa Rosa, Calif., opened a letter from Chase Home Finance (PDF). She’d been denied a permanent modification under the federal government’s loan-mod program, Chase said, because “Your hardship is not of a permanent nature.” No other reason was given.
For Herron, that was hard to [...]

by Olga Pierce, ProPublica
If you’ve been following our coverage of the nation’s unemployment insurance system, you may have concluded that things are pretty bad. (See our interactive feature showing whether your state’s fund is in the red.)
But what about some historical perspective?
It’s official, recession hounds: The 26 states with insolvent unemployment insurance trust funds have now borrowed more [...]

By Denis Campbell
Every day the 1st hour of the US NBC Today Show downloads onto my iPhone. At 34 minutes after the hour, the camera crew steps outside the studio to pan the crowd of fans gathered and there is one man who is always there. He is African American, always wears a hat or [...]

SCOTUS Guts McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform
By Denis Campbell
George Orwell was right. It took 25-years beyond 1984 but Big Brother got a Big Win today. In a typically ideological 5-4 decision worse than 1857’s Dred Scott, The US Supreme Court blew the call very badly and now the American consumer will be assaulted as never before with [...]

UPDATED by The Rev Dr. Britt Minshall
As you know I have been travelling to Haiti on mission for 13 years. My friend Pat Smyth joined me on my third trip and has been going on his own for 10 years.  You can imagine the horror we and the other Haitian Helpers across the country have [...]

By Denis Campbell
BREAKING: The Bosch motor alternator plant in Miskin, near Cardiff is closing. After teetering on the financial brink for 18-months, an official announcement is due shortly. With the loss of Hoover last fall, South Wales is down to Ford’s motor assembly plant in Bridgend as the remaining big manufacturing hope.
Cue the media tsk-tsk machine. [...]

by Charley James
Responding quickly to the Christmas Eve terrorist threat aboard a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit from Amsterdam, the US Dept. of Homeland Security announced new security procedures today in addition to not letting passengers use toilets one hour before landing.
Enhancing its screening passengers at security checkpoints, starting tomorrow all passengers on every flight [...]