Chorizos!

(That’s New Mexican for Hot Links)

“The only way America can reduce the long-term budget deficit, maintain vital services, protect Social Security and Medicare, invest more in education and infrastructure, and not raise taxes on the working middle class is by raising taxes on the super rich.” – Robert Reich.

This is my way of reducing the size of my “Favorites” list. When I see a page on a subject I might want to write about I add it to the list, and I don’t have time to write about all the ones I’ve added. I figure that if I pass these on as links, I won’t feel guilty about deleting them.

“The Body” speaks: Jesse Ventura, the flashy wrestler who served as governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003, has penned a “Letter to the Ruling Class” that really says it all about the class warfare we’re enduring: http://weaintgottimetobleed.com/

Income inequality: Blogger Brit at the Daily Kos praises President Obama for finally mentioning the widening gap between the extremely rich and everyone else in a speech at George Washington University on April 13th: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/13/966615/-He-Went-There!-Obama-Attacks-the-1

Health care is diseased: “One trained medical billing advocate says that over 90 percent of the medical bills that she has audited contain ‘gross overcharges.’” That’s number 23 in a list of “25 Shocking Facts That Prove That The Entire U.S. Health Care Industry Has Become One Giant Money Making Scam” on the website The American Dream: http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/25-shocking-facts-that-prove-that-the-entire-u-s-health-care-industry-has-become-one-giant-money-making-scam

What’s the real poverty level? The New York Times reports that “a single worker needs an income of $30,012 a year — or just above $14 an hour — to cover basic expenses and save for retirement and emergencies. That is close to three times the 2010 national poverty level of $10,830 for a single person, and nearly twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.” See:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/business/economy/01jobs.html?_r=2

Outsmarted and outsourced: While politicians across the spectrum are promising more jobs, “US” corporations continue to move jobs out of the country. Read and weep here: http://www.truth-out.org/top-us-corporations-outsourced-more-24-million-american-jobs-over-last-decade/1303196400

Tax the rich: Robert Reich, who was Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, explains why in a well-written essay: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/04-9

Why isn’t Wall Street in jail? Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi presents the prosecution’s case: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216

Has the GOP gone too far? David Corn of Mother Jones says the budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the House Budget Committee chairman, and passed with only four Republicans (and all of the Democrats) voting no, will harm the party. “With this vote, the GOP is embracing the caricature of itself: telling the poor they'll have to do with less, throwing granny out of the hospital bed, and easing life for gazillionaires,” he writes: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/ryan-2012-budget-passes

We’ll really miss you, Glenn: Faux News’s incomparable whackadoodle Glenn Beck will be leaving that network at the end of the year. As a tribute to the Beckaroo, Mediamatters has collected “The 50 Worst Things Glenn Beck Said On Fox News.” If you’re not a regular viewer, or if, like me, you only see Glenn Beck on The Daily Show, you can find some gems you missed here: http://mediamatters.org/research/201104060047

If you find this an interesting collection of chorizos, let me know and I’ll do it again.