Ed Schultz: Republican War on Poor

Much has been made recently of the Republican's "war on women". But there is another "war" being waged by conservatives according to Ed Schultz: a war on the poor.

Normally, I feel Schultz is over-the-top on his MSNBC program, but he really captures a great spirit in this piece, especially in highlighting the ignorance, or maybe it's selective reasoning, on the GOPs part of saying how the poor pay nothing in taxes, deciding only to point to federal taxes instead of looking at the entire tax burden (payroll, Medicare, state and sales taxes) shackled on the poor and middle classes. And, as Shultz points out, this is not unprecedented in the modern GOP party.

"This war is not new. It has been going on for years. But it really stands out this week. In a span of a few days, Republicans chose to protect the rich by voting down the Buffett Rule in the Senate. Now, they are attacking the most vulnerable. ... [Mitt] Romney tried to say he misspoke when he made that ["I'm not concerned about the very poor"] comment in February. But his policies prove, well, he was telling the truth. His economic plans puts money in the back pockets of the wealthiest Americans while raising taxes on people making less than $30,000 a year."

Robert Reich: Occupy Democracy

Reich has consistently supported the Occupy movement. It's safe to say he was one of the original "occupiers," at least in spirit. He's been calling for higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and the decrease in private money in our elections for a long time now. It's good to see him not only talking economics, but addressing the violations of freedom of speech and egregious police brutality on display in this country. I guess I'm not surprised that Fox News is defending the use of pepper spray on seated, unarmed, unthreatening college students, and that MSNBC is denouncing it. It'd be nice if our President had something to say about it though...