"It seems more like a class war to the folks that live in New Jersey," says Fran Ehret, President of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, Local 194 in New Jersey. And GRITtv Labor Correspondent Ed Ott notes "First they shrink the private sector wage pool, then they turn to the public sector and say 'You're the rich ones.'"

"Candidates and politicians who are at their best do not touch our brain, they touch our hearts. It's in our heart that our attitudes are shifted," notes John Nichols of The Nation, and that's what Barack Obama did last night, with his speech on the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others in Tucson, Arizona last week. He also provided, Nichols notes, a striking contrast to Sarah Palin's response to the shooting, which made it all about her.

It's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day on Monday, the holiday that celebrates the Nobel Peace Prize winner's birth and life. The Rev. King wasn't assassinated, as Rep. Gabrielle Giffords almost was, at a Congress on Your Corner. Or on a civil rights march. He was assassinated in Memphis, where he was showing up to support the right of public employees to organize, and strike.

The term "McCarthyism" has been tossed around a lot lately, with the Right's refrain of "socialism!" and "Marxism!" at every move Obama makes. But McCarthyism had very real victims back in the 1950s, and Miriam Moskowitz was one of those victims. She served two years in federal prison for Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice after being investigated along with Harry Gold, whose testimony was later used to convict Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

"They are goading people into feeling like their country has been stolen from them," says FAIR's Peter Hart of Glenn Beck and other right-wing media personalities with what he terms a "conspiratorial worldview." It's not just using violent metaphors, in other words, it's creating a paranoid mindset that something dangerous is happening to the U.S. that can appeal to those already inclined toward paranoid thinking, like Jared Loughner.

We've reported this week on how little has changed since the Haiti earthquake one year ago today. The cholera epidemic is on the rise, a million people are living in tent cities and the Haitian government is in complete paralysis. We continue to follow the situation in Haiti, but how about a little positive news?

"They are goading people into feeling like their country has been stolen from them," says FAIR's Peter Hart of Glenn Beck and other right-wing media personalities with what he terms a "conspiratorial worldview." It's not just using violent metaphors, in other words, it's creating a paranoid mindset that something dangerous is happening to the U.S. that can appeal to those already inclined toward paranoid thinking, like Jared Loughner.

A lot of people have talked this week about violent political rhetoric bringing the U.S. to a fever pitch, but there's something else keeping people on edge: that's economic catastrophe and despair.

"We in the U.S. have more people in jail than anywhere else in the world, we spend more on our military than the whole world combined, we have more guns, yet people somehow feel insecure," notes Bill Quigley of the culture in the U.S. Questions about guns aren't the only questi0n to be asked in the wake of the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, Judge John Roll, and several others in Arizona this weekend. There are many questions to be asked, about priorities, motives, and more.

"People are talking about the resilience of the Haitian people, but 1.3 million are still in tents," says Marie St. Cyr of Haiti, one year after the earthquake that devastated the nation. She points out that less than 4000 new housing units have been built, and communication is a mess. "I go to a meeting and the meeting is being held in English, who is it being held for?" she asks.