Burger King's Tax Dodge Shifts Bill to You-and-Me Taxpayers

Burger King decided to have it their way and avoid paying taxes in the United States by moving its corporate headquarters to Canada. 


Burger King is only the latest in an onslaught of U.S. companies that are fleeing America -- on paper -- to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, which shifts more tax burden to working American families.  


Many Americans are gearing up to not only hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, but to hold everything and boycott Burger King.  This is one special order that will upset Burger King's  Brazilian majority owners, 3G Capital, which bought Burger King in 2010 and sold stores and cut employees to help its bottom line.  Burger King is merging with a Canadian coffee and donut chain and will claim by corporate tax loophole magic that it is a Canadian company.

Highly Funded Lying Is Libel, Not Freedom of Speech -- But It's How We Let the Anti-People Crew Roll

We protect lying like it's an endangered species.


We used to have truth-in-advertising, Fairness Doctrine, limits on corporate takeovers of politicians.
None of our rights is absolute.  Freedom of speech is limited if we libel someone, incite a riot or cry 'fire' in a theater.  Why is bald lying about politicians not illegal?  Shouldn't we actually hold that speech to a high standard? 
Wholesale lying about politics is suddenly protected like an endangered species. 


Check out this excellent analysis from health insurance watchdog Wendell Potter. 


So long as we legally allow the massive purchase of politicians by those that can most afford it, and so long as we post brazen lying in political ads, nothing is going to change for the better.

Flipping Schools: The Hidden Forces Behind Education 'Reform'

Larger Forces -- Not Parents, Students or 'Choice' -- Push Agenda that Uses Charter Schools


New Jersey is no different than Tennessee or any other state that is breaking up free public education in America.  Except, the Department of Justice has not begun investigating Tennessee -- yet -- for civil rights violations as is laid out in this story by Owen Davis in Truthout.


(Click highlighted text, OR first read my 4-graph rant if you need to get your mad on!):

Watch the money, watch who is setting up new non-profits and LLCs for private gain.  Unfortunately, the rhetoric of reform and "choice" and "failing schools" and free markets has swayed desperate parents in the short run, while regressing to separate-and-unequal and choking public schools, which are held to standards that do not apply to free-wheeling charters.  (Across the board, the only correlating determinant of "student success" or test scores is the parents' income.)


Many of our legislators want to argue that charters are public schools.  They rip taxpayer money from the public treasury, true, but until they play on the same field, they are in no way public schools.


How incredible and frustrating it is to see this bald mugging of taxpayers and education while so many people do not recognize the larger picture.  By crushing education, the most cynical among the most wealthy worshippers of capitalism expand a permanent under-class, which suppresses wages as too many of our people must compete for too few opportunities.

Still not convinced this is a high-stakes game?  Look up all the money that out-of-state special interests for privatization such as Stand for Children and StudentsFirst poured into school board races, which we formerly believed were a bastion of non-partisanship.


Click to read this unmasking of Gov. Christie and other special interests in New Jersey:  "Flipping Schools: The Hidden Forces behind New Jersey Education Reform"