“Rich people don’t create jobs” — Seattle rich guy Jobs and prosperity are hurt — not helped — by a tax system that bestows its bounty on the super-rich and saps the middle class of buying power, according to a prominent Seattle entrepreneur. … The super-rich paid about 40 percent in taxes during the prosperous…

There’s a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) “called the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of the consumers’ premium dollars they collect—85% for large group insurers—on actual medical care rather than overhead, marketing expenses and profit.” The Bomb Buried In Obamacare Explodes Today-Hallelujah! Today, the…

Thurs., December 8, 7pm Sisters Organize for Survival meeting: The special session: We came, we protested, we occupied! The special session of the Washington state legislature was met with mass outrage about the proposed $2 billion in cuts to vital services. Come hear eyewitness accounts from folks who marched, demonstrated and participated in civil disobedience…

Rocky Anderson returns — this time shooting for president Disgusted with what he calls the corrupting influence of corporate money and militarism in politics, former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson is launching a new national political party and will likely be its presidential nominee. “The end game is changing public policy in the interest…

China’s Superior Economic Model The free-market fundamentalist economic model is being thrown onto the trash heap of history. “The conservative-preferred, free-market fundamentalist, shareholder-only model—so successful in the 20th century—is being thrown onto the trash heap of history in the 21st century. In an era when countries need to become economic teams, Team USA’s results—a jobless…

Friends, I called both Murray and Cantwell’s office this morning.  The good news is that they both voted in favor of the Udall Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012. Thank them. The bad news is that Udall’s Amendment did not pass, so the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 is set up…

Republicans, “moderate” Dems, and their corporate allies manufactured a budget crisis by handing out tax giveaways to the rich, by wasting trillions of dollars on unnecessary wars, by widespread corruption, and by recklessly deregulating and bailing out Wall Street, Big Oil, and other corporations. Washington State, which has one of the most regressive tax systems…

After doing a bit of mountain hiking a few days back, I had a chance to get involved in a great afternoon conversation with the Alliance for American Manufacturing’s Mike Wessel, who also serves as a Commissioner with the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission; the conversation was about how we’re doing when it comes…

Can the further Left (Occupiers, anarchists, and Socialists) work, in some fashion, with the nearer Left (progressive Democrats, Labor, and groups like MoveOn.org)?  Can the Occupy Movement work with allies without feeling co-opted? [Note: I posted this at OpEdNews as well; see the numerous comments there.    An earlier name for this article was “On Occupying…