‘Retirement Heist,’ by Wall Street Journal reporter Ellen Schultz, is certainly one of the most important books published in the past few decades. For the past three decades, we’ve been inundated with hysterical announcements from the corporations that they faced a “crisis” due to “runaway pension and health care costs.”

These undue burdens were bringing the entire economic system down, they said. American companies, we were told by a corporate owned media, just couldn’t compete with “unfair competition,” all because of outrageous “entitlements.” Ellen Schultz has shown, with meticulous research, how financial institutions, corporations, were able to use accounting tricks, rulings by corporate controlled government oversight bodies, ridiculous tax incentives, deception and outright lies to literally destroy the structure of retirement security that took decades of struggle by America’s working people to put in place.

Whether or not it’s an environmentally unfriendly use of plastic, activists just might cordon off as a crime scene the energy giant’s downtown headquarters, as the Columbus site for Occupy the Corporations. That's a national day of action on Sat. Jan 21, a day after organizers here carry out the Columbus contingent of Occupy the Courts by protesting against corporate personhood at the federal courthouse at Long and Marconi. Yellow tape or not, organizers here, such as Tom McNabb, have their sites set on AEP.

“Their corruption (involves) repeated violations of environmental protection laws (as well as ) spending money they get from tax rebates from us as citizens, on lobbying legislators to cut the legs out from under the rules of the fixes they’ve agreed to.”

SIX PROBLEMS UNIQUE TO 2012 NEW HAMPSHIRE ELECTIONS:
1. Removed safeguards for its same-day registration system.
2. Ignores the law on ballot-stuffing safeguards
3. Breaks the chain of custody
4. Conceals vote-counting from the public, in violation of Article 32 of its own Constitution
5. Removed candidate recount rights (2009)
6. Made it illegal for public citizens or members of the press to examine the ballots after the election is over (2003)

TWO THINGS YOU CAN DO
1. Get involved with Protect the Count NH or Watch the Vote 2012 (links below)
2. Monitor the trap doors

WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT NEW HAMPSHIRE'S FIRST-IN-NATION PRIMARY?

Dear Harvey,
I am a friend of Bob. I met you at a Free Press et. al conference pre-last presidential election. While I have admired your work for years, it took your article on Shakespeare and Co to move me to contact you.

I, too, left a part of me that still inspirits the streets of Paris. As I read the first few paragraphs of your article, I thought immediately of my own experience (not as grand as yours) and, of the recent Woody Allen film. How delighted I was to read on and find your reference to "Midnight in Paris." And, what a beautiful symmetry was felt in your remembrance of your first stay and the juxtaposition of your last return; the kindness of the gentleman who let you stay and then the kindness of your message to him, now upstairs where you had been.

I remember years ago seeing a documentary about the first owner of S&Co along with her lesbian lover. I also remember the simple act of kindness that was extended to James Joyce when no one would publish his novel Ulysses. The owner said, "Would you like me to publish your book, James?" It was so sweet, so unassuming, so considerate.

As activists and journalists debate whether Homeland Security and the CIA are actively involved in the recent domestic crackdown on the Occupy movement, evidence mounts that the progressive populist movement is being targeted by COINTELPRO style repressive tactics.

Four of the seven Occupy Columbus activists who were arrested on November 15 appeared at pre-trial before a Franklin County municipal judge on Thursday, January 5, 2012. The four had pled not guilty after being charged with “negligent trespassing” for entering the lobby of a US Bank. The activists were touring Columbus banks to inquire about their banking policies. Two of the Occupy activists have pled guilty to a minor misdemeanor trespass charge, and one has not entered a plea.

At the January 5 hearing, the four turned down a plea deal from the prosecutors and received a continuance. They will reappear for another scheduled pre-trial on February 9.

At this moment the four appear ready for a full blown trial that may possibly reveal ties between federal and local police authorities regarding surveillance of the Occupy movement.