Activists who are a part of the 99 percent Spring attended the Verizon Shareholders meeting on Thursday and disrupted the 1 percent six times as they continued to exploit the company's workers. Crooks and Liars has reported extensively on the problems with Verizon and its demands for massive concessions from its workers. Activists used great strategy to draw attention to Verizon and its greedy tactics.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better example of corporate greed than Verizon, a company making billions and tripling its CEO's pay while demanding givebacks from its workers. Today the 99% Spring movement let Verizon know that 99% of us are trying to bring big corporations back under democracy's control. Today’s Verizon shareholder meeting in Huntsville, Alabama was disrupted six separate times by members of the 99% Power coalition, part of the 99% Spring movement.

The Verizon shareholder meeting comes as the company is in negotiations with the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). The highly-profitable company -- the 16th largest corporation in America -- is asking its workers for givebacks amounting to as much as $20,000 each, while tripling the compensation of CEO Lowell McAdam from $7.2 million to $23.1 million. The company made $22.5 billion in profits over the past four years while paying its top five executives $283 million over that period. Because of this the company has earned the nickname “Verigreedy."

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better example of corporate greed than Verizon, a company making billions and tripling its CEO's pay while demanding givebacks from its workers. Today the 99% Spring movement let Verizon know that 99% of us are trying to bring big corporations back under democracy's control. Today’s Verizon shareholder meeting in Huntsville, Alabama was disrupted six separate times by members of the 99% Power coalition, part of the 99% Spring movement.

The Verizon shareholder meeting comes as the company is in negotiations with the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). The highly-profitable company -- the 16th largest corporation in America -- is asking its workers for givebacks amounting to as much as $20,000 each, while tripling the compensation of CEO Lowell McAdam from $7.2 million to $23.1 million. The company made $22.5 billion in profits over the past four years while paying its top five executives $283 million over that period. Because of this the company has earned the nickname “Verigreedy."

Dave Johnson has much more about the protests at CAF.

The buzz is that President Barack Obama is pushing hard for a deal with the big banks over the foreclosure crisis in advance of the State of the Union address on Tuesday. Most observers are afraid that the deal will be too small and that the banks will get a slap on the wrist despite playing a major role in creating the financial crisis that led to a recession.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined a growing chorus calling for a rejection of such a small deal and calling for an investigation of the banks over potential fraud and illegal activity:

We need to hold banks accountable for the fraudulent practices that brought about the worst economic crisis since the Depression. State Attorneys General have been investigating bank fraud, and these critical investigations must not be undermined by a premature and inadequate settlement. We call on the administration to reject any deal that insulates banks from full responsibility.

We commend state Attorneys Generals like New York’s Eric Schneiderman and Delaware’s Beau Biden for their leadership and courage in calling for a real investigation and relief on a scale that helps the millions of homeowners who face a new wave of foreclosures.

The economy is currently weighed down by $750 billion in negative home equity, so relief on a massive scale is needed to lift home values and stimulate the economy by increasing consumer demand. A comprehensive settlement must force banks to write down underwater mortgages. A sum significantly larger than the rumored $25 billion is needed for the economy to grow and create jobs.

Specifically, the administration must stand strong against the Big Banks and insist on:

1. A full and thorough investigation into problems tied to the residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) market, and

2. A guaranteed minimum amount of money set aside for reducing the mortgage principal of “underwater” homeowners in key states impacted by the foreclosure crisis.

This is an opportunity for the administration to demonstrate leadership and show that it has the political will to do what’s right for homeowners and right for our economy.

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It was kind of a shock to see Robert Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future actually make it onto Fox News yesterday to talk about that statement from 300 progressive economists urging Congress to proceed apace with President Obama's infrastructure-investment stimulus proposal, because such views so rarely get aired on Fox.

Of course, they brought on right-wing economist Peter Schiff -- an Austrian-school economist long associated with Ron Paul -- to argue that the reason George W. Bush's economic approach failed was that he was too much of a socialist. Right.

Moreover, Schiff's solution to everything is "free markets" and ending all government intervention. Which, in reality, is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place: The GOP's "small government" mantra, after all, led to the massive deregulation and breakdown of economic firewalls that produced this ongoing recession. If anyone listened to Schiff, we'd essentially be taking a big dose of PCBs to cure our cancer.

Here's the economists' statement:

Today there is a grave danger that the still-fragile economic recovery will be undercut by austerity economics. A turn by major governments away from the promotion of growth and jobs and to premature focus on deficit reduction could slow growth and increase unemployment – and could push us back into recession.

History suggests that a tenuous recovery is no time to practice austerity. In the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal generated growth and reduced the unemployment rate from 25 percent in 1932 to less than 10 percent in 1937. However, the deficit hawks of that era persuaded President Roosevelt to reverse course prematurely and move toward budget balance. The result was a severe recession that caused the economy to contract sharply and sent the unemployment rate soaring. Only the much larger wartime spending of the early 1940s produced a full recovery.

Today, the economy is growing only weakly. 7.8 million jobs have been lost in the recession. Consumers, having suffered losses in home values and retirement savings, are tightening their belts. The business sector, uncertain about consumer spending, is reluctant to invest in expansion or job creation, leaving the economy trapped on a path of slow growth or stagnation. Over 20 million American workers are now unemployed, underemployed or simply have given up looking for a job.

The President and Congress should redouble efforts to create jobs and send aid to the states whose budget crises threaten recovery by forcing them to lay off school teachers, public safety workers, and other essential workers. It also makes sense to invest in public service jobs – and in infrastructure projects for transportation, water, and energy conservation that will make our economy more productive for years to come.

Be sure to read the whole thing [PDF file].

Borosage also wrote a piece outlining the statement and the reasoning behind it:

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Oh, the Orange One is so funny:

The top Republican in the House of Representatives called on Tuesday for President Barack Obama to fire his economic team in a campaign-style speech meant to focus voters on the weak American economy.

House Republican leader John Boehner said Obama should begin clearing house by replacing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House economic adviser Larry Summers.

"It's time to put grown-ups in charge. It's time for people willing to accept responsibility," Boehner told a civic group in Cleveland.

Boehner's call for a "fresh start" on the economy comes 10 weeks before November 2 elections expected to see Republicans slash Democrats' big majorities in the House and Senate, largely because of the near double-digit jobless rate.

If Republicans take the House, Boehner is in line to become its speaker, which would make him the chamber's presiding officer and in charge of setting its agenda.

Boehner has been a leading critic of Obama's programs, including his overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system, reform of the rules governing the financial industry, and what Republicans' denounce as his failed $812 billion economic stimulus plan designed to create jobs and boost investment.

Okay, I admit, that was a rather large spit take hearing Boehner actually having the hubris to claim that the Republican "grown ups" should be in charge. Again, who had the keys to the car that drove off this cliff?

"Failed" stimulus? Despite the lagging (you do know what "lagging" means, don't you, John?) indicator of employment, even Republican governors have been forced to admit that the stimulus has worked.

With all due respect to the ambitious would-be Speaker of the House, as Campaign for America's Future puts it, Boehner needs more than a fact-check for his speech, he needs a fact-stimulus:

That sad, pathetic, empty shell of speech -- a chain of lies, exposing an agenda of nothing but more tax cuts and fewer rules for multi-millionaire CEOs.

Boehner's fact-deprived speech needs a fact-stimulus. Here are just the most egregious examples:

1. Boehner Would Kill Jobs, Literally

Early in the speech, Boehner criticizes the recent passage of aid to state governments to avert layoffs and provide health care funding:

[President Obama] signed a 26 billion dollar ‘stimulus’ spending bill that funnels money to state governments in order to protect government jobs. Even worse, the bill is funded by a new tax hike that makes it more expensive to create jobs in the United States and less expensive to create jobs overseas.

This cannot continue. 

I have had enough – and the American people have had enough – of Washington politicians talking about wanting to create jobs as a ploy to get themselves re-elected while doing everything possible to prevent jobs from being created.

He characterizes the goal to "protect government jobs" as a bad thing. Later in the speech he proposes "freezing both government pay and government hiring."

Meanwhile he used the phrase "job-killing" to describe the President's economic strategy a dozen times.

Yet he embraced a position -- denying aid to fiscally distressed state governments and hiring no more federal government workers -- that would literally kill hundreds of thousands of jobs, including those of teachers, police officers and firefighters.

I have "had enough" of lies that "pretend" people who hold jobs as public servants don't have real jobs.

And there's more... there's much more. The White House adds their two cents as well to this partisan hackery.

Yes, I'm going to a great conference hosted by Campaign for America's Future this week. I'm flying to DC Sunday.

David Neiwert and Susie Madrak will be there also so we can have a little C&L powwow. Progressive politics is the life blood of our country and I'm down for participating in the process and trying to get together with the people that feel the same way. CFAF has some of the most talented people in politics and I couldn't be more excited to be part of it.

I'll be on a cool panel with some very progressives minds at the AFN:

Tuesday, 9:30AM Ends 10:40AM Tea Parties, Beck, Bachman and Blarney

Tea Parties, Beck, Bachman and Blarney

Palladian Room

Eric Burns
John Atlas
Alex Zaitchik
John Amato
Digby
James Rucker

I've had a short video made to illustrate how right wing extremism has found its way from talk radio, radical religious figures and paranoid militia groups into the halls of Congress.

After the panel David and I will be doing a book signing which should be very different. David has done this a few times, but for me it's a first so...

I hope I see you there if you happen to be in DC.