9pm and 11pm ET - on the Big Picture - WikiLeaks...what is civil disobedience?

Need to Know: Pressure builds in House to pass tax-cut package with Chris Bowers, Campaign Director for Daily Kos

Screwed: Tea Party Gov.-Elect Walker Compels Business To Leave State After He Kills High Speed Rail In Wisconsin

Best of the Rest of the News:

Hoyer And Murphy Confirm Standalone DADT Repeal Bill In The House with Evan McMorris-Santoro, Reporter-Blogger with TPMDC

Now you can read all of Thom Hartmann's "Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country" for free online. Truthout is publishing weekly installments over 12 weeks.

Read Chapter Five: Medicare “Part E”- for Everybody today.

Is Kyoto Dead? Amy Goodman reports from the Moon Palace

Crazy Alert! Return of the living dead

Is Larry Summers yelling "Fire!" to scare Democrats?

There is a fundamental – and insidious – belief that political power in the hands of average working people is dangerous and destabilizing to America; this is the source of conservative antipathy to both democracy and labor unions. They believe in “original sin,” that we’re all essentially evil and corruptible (because we came out of the womb of a woman, who was heir to Eve’s apple-eating), and therefore it’s necessary for a noble, well-educated, and wealthy (male) elite – working behind the scenes – to make the rules for and run our society.

Among the chief proponents of this Bible-based view of the errancy of average working people are the five right-wing members of the current Supreme Court – John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy – who have consistently worked to make America more hierarchical, only with a small, wealthy “conservative/ corporate” elite in charge, instead of a divinely-ordained Pope (all five are Roman Catholic, and four of the five belong to or are affiliated with a small far-right sect within that church, which may influence their judicial thinking) or king.

And even though the Citizens United case – which landed in the Supreme Court’s lap after the federal court in Washington DC ruled in favor of the FEC ban – was only about a small slice of the McCain-Feingold law, the Republican Five used it as an opportunity to make a monumental change to Constitutionally empower corporations and undo a century of legal precedents, giving corporations "free speech" rights.

Learn more about how the Supreme Court used the Citizens United case to give corporations the “right” of a corporate “person” to heavily influence political campaigns, so expensive to democracy, in chapter ten, "Wal-Mart Is Not A Person!", of "Rebooting the American Dream". (On Kindle too)

Would you like to help give a child with a very troubled background this feeling of peace?

Thom and Louise Hartmann founded the New England Salem Children's Village (NESCV) in New Hampshire in 1979. With states delaying payment for the children they entrust to the village, they need help with cash flow. Can you help?