If I speak out as a citizen, or join with others and decide "to speak, just as a group," I am choosing to further democratic decision making by adding my voice. Democracy's foundation is the belief that citizens are able to deliberate and choose what is best for society as a whole. And indeed Americans often vote with this goal foremost--voting what they think is right, not necessarily in their narrow self-interest. But if I form a corporation, or own shares in one, my purpose is utterly different. Partly, I seek to shield myself against personal financial liability and to enjoy other legal advantages for financial gain. These very different purposes and protections are among the reasons a corporation is not a citizen, nor is it a group of citizens; and why it cannot vote or sit on a jury, for example.

Interactive Map included --- Between 2009-2018, the United States is scheduled to give Israel--the largest recipient of U.S. aid--$30 billion in military aid. Through its illegal 42-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, Israel misuses U.S. weapons in violation of U.S. law to kill and injure Palestinian civilians, destroy Palestinian civilian infrastructure, blockade the Gaza Strip, and build illegal settlements in West Bank and East Jerusalem.

India's leading software trade body said on Tuesday that protectionism in key markets could affect the growth prospects of the country's outsourcing industry.

he story that everyone wants to tell is that the Democratic Party is disheartened and disintegrating. Teabagger Republicans are juiced up and on top. Or so the media says, over and over again. But the House candidate who raised the most money in the entire country during the last FEC reporting period -- $860,000 in three months -- is not a teabagger. He is not boosted relentlessly by Fox News. He's not even a Republican. He doesn't think that the Earth was created 6000 years ago, that President Obama was born in Kenya, or that global warming is a hoax. This House candidate also, remarkably, had the largest number of contributors. Over 15,000 individuals contributed, many of whom have given time after time, whatever they could. The House candidate who raised the most money did so without French-kissing lobbyists, without flattering the idle rich, and without reaching into his own pocket. The House candidate who raised the most money, from the most people, is an outspoken populist who tells it like it is on the war, on jobs, and on health care. His website is called CongressmanWithGuts.com. In the 100,000 e-mails that he has received this year, the most common refrain is, "You are saying what I've been thinking." I know who he is. Because he's me. But no one has reported that the House candidate who raised the most money, from the most people, is a proud Democratic populist. No one.

More than 8 million jobs have been lost in the US since 2007. This week will be a critical one for millions of Americans on Unemployment Insurance (UI). Although job loss is slowing, the economy is still not producing any new jobs and UI benefits will end for one million Americans on February 28th if Congress does not take immediate action. Four million more Americans will lose the benefits in the months that follow. The impact will be devastating on families and communities, as foreclosures driven by unemployment accelerate and as small businesses lose billions in revenue from paying customers. That’s because every $1 of unemployment insurance benefits that is spent results in $1.69 in economic stimulus in the community. Wednesday, February 10th will be a National Day of Action to Save the UI program. Tell Congress to extend UI benefits until the end of 2010.

Jarvious Cotton’s great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole. – From ‘The New Jim Crow’.

Almost as if on cue, the conservative-dominated pundits of FOX News responded to Sarah Palin's telepalmer gaffe by doing the only thing a "balanced" network could do -- defending her inept actions with implausible rationales.

India has deferred the commercial cultivation of what would have been its first genetically modified (GM) vegetable crop due to safety concerns.

Rep. John Murtha's (D-PA) death on Monday has been reported by various news outlets as resulting from "complications following gallbladder surgery." Via Taegan Goddard, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the "complications" involved a mistake by Murtha's surgeons.

"At a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Los Angeles last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann offered a candid view of her positions on Israel: Support for Israel is handed down by God and if the United States pulls back its support, America will cease to exist."

"Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today sent a letter to President Obama commending him for calling for new ideas and a renewed discussion about health care reform. Kucinich requested that supporters of Medicare for All be represented at the upcoming February 25 health care summit."

Adult diapers could be rationed and personal care assistants may need to buy their own disposable gloves to help cut $109 million from the state's Medicaid costs, state lawmakers were told Tuesday. Other Medicaid services being targeted in the effort to close Nevada's $881 million budget deficit include ending so-called "optional services," including adult vision, hearing and denture programs. Adult day care programs also could be cut, as well as outpatient programs for people with brain trauma.

Britain's "Chilcot Inquiry" into the origins of the invasion of Iraq has largely faded from the headlines, following Tony Blair's bravura display of pious bluster before the panel of Establishment worthies last month. And in truth, it has been a rather toothless affair, with the already deferential worthies further constrained by the narrow confines placed upon their investigation by the government: chiefly, the cloak of secrecy wrapped around the many documents that detail the deceptions and manipulations of the Bush and Blair regimes as they schemed their way to war. ~~~ And so, to close out its first phase, the Chilcot Inquiry recalled Straw -- who had already given one sweaty, white-knuckle performance on the witness stand a few weeks ago. With the implacable politesse of the true British mandarin, panelist Sir Lawrence Freedman seized the opportunity to suggest to the right honorable minister that the right honorable minister might, perhaps, be lying through his right honorable teeth in denying that Colin Powell had informed him quite clearly that the Americans were going to war, come hell or high water, in March 2003. As the Guardian notes, Freedman's questions "make it clear that [he] has obviously seen some very interesting paperwork. Here is the exchange, from the Guardian: Freedman asked: Can you start by confirming that you knew that military action was planned by the US for the middle of March come what may? You were copied in, presumably, to reports of conversations between the prime minister and the president? Straw replied: Yes, I don't think there was any key document that I should have seen that I didn't. Freedman: Was there any point where [Colin] Powell said to you that even if Iraq complied, president Bush had already made a decision that he intended to go to war? Straw replied: Certainly not to the best of my recollection. Freedman went on: I was going to suggest you might want to look through your conversations and check. Mr Straw at last got the hint: I will go through the records because I think you are trying to tell me something. Yes, Mr Straw. He is trying to tell you, and the world, that he has the paper in his hand documenting your conversation with Colin Powell: a clear admission of the war crime of military aggression, as it reveals that there was not even a pretense of a legally justifiable casus belli among the American and British leaders -- just the cold, pre-determined intention to attack.

The feckless and laggard performance of the Obama administration's signature program to keep Americans in their homes has a Democratic senator looking for answers -- and improvement in the face of a continuing U.S. foreclosure crisis.

Insurer spent nearly $9.5 million lobbying against health reforms; CEO's annual salary tops $10 million health care money Obama admin. demands justification for health insurers 39 percent rate hike It's an issue that strikes at the core of America's health reform debate: How much should one have to pay to ensure their health care needs are met?

"When it comes to employment, there are roughly three broad categories in the United States. The folks in the upper-income group are not suffering much, if at all, from the profound reversals in employment brought about by the Great Recession. Those in the middle have been hit hard. The job losses there have been severe and long-lasting. But for those in the lower-income groups, the scale of the employment crisis has been mind-boggling."

The Treasury Department has spent more than $159 million paying financial companies and legal firms to help the government dole out TARP funds. We at ProPublica have learned that the special inspector general for the TARP (SIGTARP), Neil Barofsky, has started an audit of how Treasury chose the companies and whether the government is being billed fairly for the work.

Here’s a story that puts the lie to the myth of the “liberal media.” Too bad hardly anyone has been paying attention. Sen. Dick Shelby (R-Ala.), a snarling, bloodthirsty Cheneyite neo-con, abruptly ended his attempt to force the Obama administration to approve two pork projects for his home state after being called out for taking the nominees “hostage” by New York’s center-right New York Daily News on Sunday.

In Last Rites for the USA, Cindy Sheehan addresses the substantial erosion of U.S. democracy by oligarchy. The freshest hell, as Sheehan sees it -- an ultimate tipping point, she claims, in tearing away ANY illusion of democracy -- is the Supreme Court’s recent aggressive decision to expand “personhood” rights and protections of corporations in relation to campaign financing. “Corporations have long held sway over our government and the soft fascism of corporate control has been running things behind the scenes.” Sheehan points out that the oligarchs no longer need to lurk behind the “soft fascism” curtain to achieve their grotesquely ambitious goals. That had been soft fascism for decades, she contends. The corporatists presume to operate in front of the curtain now, thanks to the near unanimous, bi-partisan (or post-partisan in the darkest, Orwellian sense) cronyism -- of the across-the-moral-divide enabling of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of this, our formerly representative, democracy.

While Medicare payments for in-office services to private doctors, including those for blood work and x-ray units, were drastically cut, payments to outside corporate facilities for the same services were increased. It is obvious what is afoot. Corporate lobbies are using their whores in Congress to shift income from physician offices to corporate labs, corporate medical service providers, and hospitals that are owned by national corporations. Legislation that cuts payments to private physicians and increases the payments to large corporate entities is intended to destroy private practice and to create in its place corporate bureaucracies in which doctors are wage slaves. The physician's income is diverted to shareholders, CEO bonuses, and Wall Street. Health care is being replaced with health business. As a result of the way American medicine is being reconstructed, patients will cease to have a doctor whom they know and who knows them. Important information is lost in a system of bureaucratized "health care" in which a patient sees whatever face happens to be on duty at the corporate provider. Impersonal health care thus brings a cost of its own, and its quality can be low compared to private practice. Indeed, the U.S. is creating a "health care" system that is more costly and less efficient than single-payer national health systems. But it will enrich corporations and provide play for Wall Street.