I am so tired of stoopid-infused hate. On Saturday, Bob Vander Plaats hosted his so-called “Thanksgiving Family Forum” along with fellow bigots The National Organization for Marriage, and CitizenLink (Focus on the Family), where we got another chance to see the GOP Clown Car act pious in front of the fringe they need to survive the Republican primary in 2012.

It’s not surprising that NOM president Brian Brown asked those present (notably Romney and Huntsman passed on attending) what action they would take if the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), ruling it unconstitutional.

Over the last few days protests have been growing in Egypt in response to the continuing control of the government by Mubarak era military forces.

Only eight days away from parliamentary elections which activists believe are being subverted by the military to protect their continued control, activists are back in Tahrir, Alexandria and Suez demanding democratic control of the Egyptian government.

The members of the Twin Cities branch of the Occupy movement might be under near-constant official harassment, but that certainly doesn’t mean they’ve given up their efforts on behalf of those of us in the 99%. Just as they worked earlier to get another foreclosure victim the needed time and aid to move her and her disabled father to a new home, they’re now, with Nick Espinosa taking a key role, working to keep a Minneapolis university professor in her home.

I was on Mark Thompson’s show on Sirius XM radio on Friday, and I said at that time that there’s a better chance of Herman Cain knowing what he’s talking about on Libya than the Super Committee coming to a deal. And indeed, I will not be proven wrong. It’s clear that the Super Committee will go down to defeat as early as tomorrow, with an announcement that they could not reach agreement on a deficit reduction deal. In the end, there was no reason to reach a deal. There’s an election next year, and both sides want to use key elements to any deal in their pitch to voters; broadly speaking, Republicans want to be the party to protect your tax rates, and Democrats want to be the party to protect Medicare. Both those items were imperiled by a deal, so there could be no deal.

The gentle sobbing of Erskine Bowles and Alice Rivlin and Alan Simpson and Pete Domenici will be heard across the land.

Kalleberg’s solution requires rethinking the social contract, a tough sell in individualistic America. He refers to the European concept of “flexicurity,” which seeks to combine employer flexibility with worker security. Doing so requires rethinking the relationship between public and private. The essential elements of such a model require universal, affordable, portable health insurance which ideally should be separated from employment. It also requires a more secure and portable pension system, more generous unemployment insurance, and greater opportunities to acquire new skills and education over the course of a lifetime. If employment is more transient and employers invest little in their workers, then a revitalized social safety net needs to fill in the gaps.

Recently, Victoria Childress of Victoria’s Cake Cottage in Des Moines, Iowa refused to provide her professional services to a lesbian couple.

The couple had already invested time in communications with Childress, and Childress had them come to her business premises for a tasting. Only at the tasting did she realize that the customers were lesbian. On the grounds that her “Christian” beliefs don’t permit her to bake a cake for a same sex wedding, she refused to proceed with the tasting.

I arrived at Keiner Plaza in downtown St. Louis at around 2 pm in anticipation of the scheduled march in cooperation with the National Day of Action Thursday. After I arrived I milled through the crowd looking for familiar faces. I saw a couple of the homeless men that have been there since the beginning, one of them recognized me. We shook hands and talked a bit. He said it was a big day for the Occupy movement in St. Louis. Then I signed in and asked the greeter how many people they were expecting, she said around 750. There were a lot of unions there and each one “occupied” a section of Keiner Plaza. You could feel the electricity in the air.

When people believe things that are obviously untrue, and obviously not in their best financial interests, it means that Oligarchy has asserted control of the market in ideas.

What social or psychological dysfunctions led UC-Davis police lieutenant John Pike to brutally assault some sitting, non-threatening protestors with chemical pepper spray?

At least the local press seem to be covering Occupy Dallas more fairly–that is a start in the right direction. We are getting the word out there that we are not a bunch of “lazy” people among other things. The fact is that most of us do have jobs and we do care deeply about what is happening to the majority of the people in our country.