It's no secret that those of us here tonight have had our differences over the last two years. The debates have been contentious; we have fought fiercely for our beliefs. And that's a good thing. That's what a robust democracy demands. That's what helps set us apart as a nation.

This year’s theme is “Austerity for Whom?” and is intended to inform and buttress the arguments of those who are resisting – or should be resisting – efforts to further shrink the public sector and destroy government’s ability to act as a counterweight to corporate power, all in the name of saving the nation from looming bankruptcy. The 2011 edition suffers, however, from a great flaw, one that is rooted in the deep Black political crisis that has become grotesquely acute with the rise of Barack Obama.

Appelbaum is the only known American member of Wikileaks and the leading evangelist for the software program that helped make the leak possible. In a sense, he's a bizarro version of Mark Zuckerberg: If Facebook's ambition is to "make the world more open and connected," Appelbaum has dedicated his life to fighting for anonymity and privacy. An anarchist street kid raised by a heroin- addict father, he dropped out of high school, taught himself the intricacies of code and developed a healthy paranoia along the way.

On Wednesday, House Republicans plan to rush to the floor a bill that would eliminate the federal government's presidential financing system—in the process, violating recent pledges by the GOP's leadership of increased transparency and debate in Congress. Not one hearing has been held on the legislation, nor has a single commitee debated its merits.

VK, roving reporter for The Automatic Earth, has been playing with the numbers from the January 7 employment report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It seems valuable to look at unemployment from this, a different, angle. Some of it may even surprise you.

Do you remember, back at the end of 2008, when Goldman Sachs switched its status from investment bank to commercial bank? This provided it with various benefits that allowed it to avoid imminent destruction, and as long as they were doing it, the Goldman partners decided to switch their fiscal year from one that starts on December 1 to one that starts on January 1. Because of that, December 2008 was part of no fiscal year at all, and Goldman cleverly booked huge losses that month that never showed up on any of its annual reports.

The GOP controls the House, had big gains in the the Senate, has a gigantic swath of states with Republican governors, and is well-liked in the polls.

What we do NOT have is a clearly viable candidate for President.

Huckabee; Palin; Romney; Haley Barbour, who's my own favorite - all have their pros and cons, but none stands out as a clearly winning alternative to Barack Obama.

But wait a minute! Isn't there someone out there who is Obama's equal in oratory, charisma, and ability to draw votes who COULD run as a Republican?

For more than twenty years, microcredit has been widely heralded as the remedy for world poverty. Recent news stories, however, have sullied microcredit’s glowing reputation with reports on scandals, exorbitant compensation to managers, skyrocketing interest rates, and aggressive marketing schemes.

It’s time for the Federal Reserve to start emphasizing its own alternative measures of inflation trends.

To gauge where prices are heading, since the 1970s the Fed’s been focusing the public’s attention on a core inflation measure that strips out volatile food and energy prices, making the central bank sometimes look arbitrary and out of touch with reality.

The poor spend a greater proportion of their income on food and fuel, and so, when the prices of both start to rise, poorer households suffer more. Petrol, diesel, sugar and cereal prices are all up. Poor women, invariably responsible for household food purchases, are hurt far more than men – which is why they've protested in India, where food inflation soared to 19.8% just last month.

More common are the “moral conservatives” (34 percent), who think of themselves as conservative in terms of their own personal values, be they social or religious. And they are indeed right-leaning on social, cultural and religious issues. But they also like government spending on a variety of programs and generally approve of government interventions in the marketplace, hardly making them true conservatives.

It didn't matter if it was pitch black or cold - or if she were juggling calls she had missed while on the plane from Washington, D.C., or preparing to meet with constituents the next day. She would do all that, and then go for that bike ride. For the past two Tuesdays, cyclists have shown up en masse outside the hospital where she remained in serious condition, along with hundreds of other supporters. The 2-mile vigil ride from the University of Arizona campus takes less than 15 minutes, but organizer Damion Alexander said there's a lot to think about in that short time.

Janette Sadik-Khan, the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, is the keynote speaker at the National Bike Summit's opening plenary, Wednesday March 9. Since her appointment in 2007, the New York City has completed more than 250 miles of bike lanes and 20 miles of cycle track; passed innovative bicycle parking legislation and delivered extensive education and safety programs. Bicycle use has doubled since 2006, while fatalities have fallen to their lowest level in decades.

This is in direct opposition to the official stance of the White House and the US government which has been vocal in condemning the whistle-blowing organisation and seeking to bring its founder, Julian Assange, to trial in the US.

It wasn’t so very long ago that some Americans held people as slaves, other human beings as their own private property, as if that person were a horse or a chair, to do with, to use, abuse, exploit, beat, and rape as they pleased.  What’s more, until the late 1840s most Americans thought that slavery was acceptable.  The great majority found themselves somewhere along a spectrum that at one end actually exalted slavery as a positive thing, a benefit to black people they deemed radically inferior, and at the other end said, Well, it’s a real shame, and I certainly don’t condone it or wan

THE .50 CALIBER Bushmaster bolt action rifle is a serious weapon. The model that Pvt. 1st Class Lee Pray is saving up for has a 2,500-yard range and comes with a Mark IV scope and an easy-load magazine. When the 25-year-old drove me to a mall in Watertown, New York, near the Fort Drum Army base, he brought me to see it in its glass case—he visits it periodically, like a kid coveting something at the toy store.

"Abandoned foreclosures are increasing as mortgage investors determine that, at sale, they can't recoup the costs of foreclosing, securing, maintaining and marketing a home, and they sometimes aren't completing foreclosure actions. The property, by then usually vacant, becomes another eyesore in limbo along blocks where faded signs still announce block clubs."

h/t Zero Hedge