Take, for instance, the lead issue in the State of the Union speech: jobs. After admonishing US corporations to bring jobs back to the US, Obama offers up a host of tax credit sweeteners, as if the federal government is wallowing in money right now. Commentators pointed out immediately that taxes are not the main reason for offshoring. Cheap labor, lack of labor laws and safety regulations, and closer proximity to commodities and parts are the main reasons corporations send jobs overseas. Obama didn’t say, “We’re ready to repeal labor laws; Congress, send me a bill and I will sign it!” Although that’s what it would take to move these jobs back here.

In fact, the Obama administration doesn’t need to do this on a federal level, because similar actions are occurring at the state level. Last week, Indiana became the 23rd state in the union to pass a “right-to-work” law that undermines labor unions, and a number of other states are considering doing the same. The Obama administration has chosen to remain silent on the “right-to-work” movement, which amounts to a strategic decision to passively support corporations’ efforts to create a Third-World underclass here in the US.

Likewise, his job training initiatives will help employers at the expense of students. A proposal to create a public-private partnership between corporations and community colleges begs the question: while students are learning how to measure, calculate, cut, solder, clean, and assemble, will they be learning civics, reading comprehension, history, or critical thinking? These latter skills are essential for an informed populace in a democratic society, as many Middle Eastern nations are learning today. Will we lose an important edge in our capacity for freedom and democracy in order to gain a competitive edge in the international job markets?

Many listeners celebrated Obama’s call to free K-12 students from standardized testing, expand work-study opportunities for college students, allocate more pay for teachers, extend the tuition tax credit, and lower college tuition rates. He didn’t say, however, where the money would come from for all of these expensive proposals.

No, instead he changed the subject to immigration reform, sending a deeply contradictory message: yes, we should pass laws allowing immigrant students to become naturalized citizens. But then he beat his chest about how he’s closed the borders by putting more “boots on the ground” than any previous president. These two statements don’t constitute an effective immigration reform policy, and certainly don’t fulfill the promise he made in his campaign three years ago to reform our broken immigration system. Under his presidency, that system has become more militarized—an overzealous arm of the anti-terrorism campaign—and has torn many families and communities apart.

Much has been written since the State of Union speech about Obama’s new taskforce to crack down on banks and mortgage lenders who engaged in shady lending practices in the past decade. It’s three years too late and millions of dollars short. The SEC and the Department of Justice have already covered this ground, suing big banks and their former CEO’s and extracting insufficient settlement payments—most of which were paid by shareholders of those companies, not the executives responsible for the misdeeds. The banks will argue strenuously and with great success that this is double jeopardy: they can’t be sued twice for the same crimes. Proponents’ arguments that the taskforce will uncover new crimes are not persuasive, given that that the taskforce will be staffed with many of the same lawyers from the SEC and the DOJ who pursued the earlier cases.

The clearest example of the Obama administration’s approach to governance can be seen in its energy and environmental policies. In his speech Obama said, “Tonight I’m directing my administration to open more than 75% of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.” So much for cracking down on oil company polluters in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf. He went on to say that hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is okay, as long as companies tell us which chemicals they’re pouring into the ground. No mention was made of how those chemicals often migrate into groundwater and drinking water supplies, harming human, plant, and animal life. No mention was made of recent studies of earthquake activity near the deep-well disposal sites for contaminated fluids used in fracking.

Boasting that we have 100 years of natural gas reserves in the US, Obama ignored recent estimates by his own Energy Information Administration that show those reserves to be much lower—more than 40% lower, in fact, than earlier estimates. In addition, the US is set to become a net exporter of liquefied natural gas by 2016, belying Obama’s assumption that that our natural gas supply is for domestic use only.

The president then tossed a bone to environmentalists by calling for the opening of public lands to clean energy projects. Unfortunately, this shows the Democratic Party’s vast ignorance of the debate raging in environmental circles about such projects. Many enviros condemn the effort to place, for example, solar panels in a pristine and fragile semi-desert environment, when there are many private lands that could be used for clean energy development. The difference: energy companies would have to pay private landowners, when they could get access to public lands much more cheaply. Again, financial incentives to corporations trump environmental policy.

Most important are the elements missing from an Obama administration energy and environmental policy, primarily energy conservation plans and any effort to require power plants to clean up their carbon emissions. Corporations and the Republican Party have called these “job-killing” initiatives, and the Democratic Party has swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

Aside from the tax credits for businesses to bring jobs home, the expensive educational initiatives, and the call to fund clean energy projects, the centerpiece of Obama’s State of the Union address, the words that everyone was waiting to hear were: “Here’s how we’re going to pay for all this.”

Again, Obama disappointed us. He made two, brief statements about funding for his proposals. First, he claimed that the federal government will get a peace dividend from ending the war in Iraq, which Congress should spend to pay down the deficit and fund infrastructure projects.

The peace dividend is a mirage. The US is still pouring billions of dollars into the War on Terror. Sure, not as much of it is going to Iraq, although we still have the largest US embassy in the world in Baghdad, and we’re still funding Iraqi infrastructure and security forces training there. But we’re pouring increasing amounts of money into secret and undeclared wars all across the Middle East and Africa, from Pakistan to Yemen, to Somalia. And let’s not forget Afghanistan, where the US military estimates we’ll be involved for at least the next decade or longer.

Secondly, Obama embraced Warren Buffet’s proposal to raise taxes on people who make more than a million dollars per year. This does not constitute a comprehensive, detailed tax plan. He didn’t say a single word about letting the Bush tax cuts expire, he didn’t mention raising taxes on carried interest (wages earned by hedge fund managers that are taxed at only 15%), or raising capital gains tax rates. He didn’t mention revising the alternative minimum tax to capture more wealthy taxpayers instead of middle-class taxpayers. He didn’t mention a special tax on investment transactions, nor did he make a case for the estate tax or closing loopholes that allow the wealthy to transfer their assets tax-free to their children and grandchildren. He didn’t discuss how many businesses in the US paid little or no tax on their profits last year. In short, he presented no plan to deal with the federal government’s fiscal woes. And that’s a massive failure of governance.

Congress bears some responsibility for not passing a comprehensive budget, but that doesn’t let the president off the hook for proposing a solution to the most important problem in the national political arena. Obama failed to do that, and in doing so, proved himself as much removed from reality and divorced from the concerns of average Americans as George W. Bush ever was.

Obama’s State of the Union speech can be viewed as a campaign speech, but it should also be viewed as a gauge for the state of his presidency. In spite of rhetoric meant to appeal to middle class Americans, his administration has done everything it can to help the wealthy maintain their privileges, and to help corporations erode democracy, workers’ rights, and the environment in pursuit of more profits for their shareholders. None of the Republican candidates for president would be better, but they also wouldn’t be much worse, and that makes me shudder for the future of democracy in America.

One has to feel for Romney, thrashing about amidst the Newt horror. Here comes the portly Georgian, brushing aside the Mormon priests guarding Mitt’s hotel suite, kicking open the bedroom door, seizing Romney by the throat…Aaaargh! And then Romney is awake, realizing that this is a cold-sweat nightmare that will last … maybe until they close in Florida on January 31, maybe until Super Tuesday on March 6, when nine states hold their primaries, maybe….

We left Romney amidst the supposed flush of victory in Iowa (now awarded to Santorum), and triumph in New Hampshire, with polls in South Carolina showing him a solid ten points ahead of Gingrich, who made a poor showing in New Hampshire on top of a fourth place in Iowa below Santorum and Ron Paul.

Gingrich burned for revenge for his rough treatment in New Hampshire by Romney’s campaign commercials. But how, on a tight timeline, to acquaint South Carolina Republicans with Romney’s infamies?

He needed money, lots of it, double-quick. Occupy Las Vegas!

Some things don’t change in American politics, and rich people sitting in Las Vegas with pots of cash is one of them. Joel McCleary, a friend, remembers fundraising in Las Vegas when he was working for the Jimmy Carter campaign in 1976. The crucial Pennsylvania primary was coming up and the Carter people (their chief fundraiser was Morris Dees) needed a big wad of cash for the final push against Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington, known as “the senator from Boeing,” also running for the Democratic nomination and favored by powerful labor chieftains in Pennsylvania.

Joel was told the go-to guy for untraceable campaign cash was Hank Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun. Greenspun was a notoriously tough egg, former gun-runner for the Haganah, the man who, in the midst of the Cold War witch hunts, outed Senator Joe McCarthy in the Sun as a homosexual. Joel was told to act manly. Greenspun duly received him in his office. “Why the hell should I get money for Jimmy Carter?” he asked.

“Because Jimmy Carter is going to be president,” Joel answered boldly, “and if you don’t support his campaign he’ll fuck you.”

Greenspun told Joel to come back in two hours. He returned to find Greenspan sitting at a table surrounded by other toughs. In the middle of the table was a paper bag. “So the Baptist fuck wants money,” Greenspun growled, as he pushed the bag over to Joel. “Remember, this comes from the state of Israel. Don’t you ever forget it.”

Greenspun was no doubt also sluicing money to Jackson, a particularly slavish errand boy for Israel. With Carter he was hedging his bets. Wisely, as it turned out. They called the odds right in Las Vegas. Carter won the Pennsylvania primary, beating Jackson 36 to 27 percent. Jackson pretty much gave up after that, saying, frankly, “We’re out of money.” At least Greenspun, who died in 1989, didn’t live to know that he invested $100,000 in a man later to denounce Israel as an apartheid state.

Las Vegas paper bags notwithstanding, in former times there were certain pettifogging constraints on how much a billionaire could lavish on his favored candidate. But then came the Citizens United decision by the US Supreme Court (split 5-4), issued in January 2010, ruling that the First Amendment, protecting free speech, prohibits the government from placing limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations and unions. As Ralph Nader correctly pointed out at the time, “With this decision, corporations can now directly pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars.”

Enter 78-year old Sheldon Adelson, the world’s 16th richest man, a bit dented by the property crash in Nevada but still with $23 billion at his disposal. The sun rises on his empire in Macao, sets on it in the west in Las Vegas, with its zenith over the state of Israel, whence his second wife hails. On Israel Adelson entertains very harsh views about the advisability of negotiations of any sort with Palestinians and lately has been lobbying fiercely–he owns the free weekday Israel Hayom, the largest circulation newspaper in Israel–for an attack on Iran.

When Newt Gingrich, fishing for Zionist money, abandoned his previous, relatively temperate posture on the Israel/Palestine issue, and declared that Palestinians were an “invented people,” he was directing his remarks to an audience of one.

Adelson was exceeding pleased and expressed his gratification in material terms, with a further $5 million, staking Gingrich’s campaign ads in South Carolina. To date Adelson has donated about $13 million to Gingrich’s campaign–a US record. The ads put out by the Gingrich forces derive in origin from Senator Ted Kennedy’s successful effort to defend his US senate from Romney’s challenge back in 1994. The Kennedy campaign put together ferocious spots depicting Romney, erstwhile boss of the private equity firm Bain Capital, as one of the most vicious operators in the history of American capitalism, never happier than when taking over factories, destroying jobs, kicking workers into the snow, and sneering at the tears of their distraught wives and children.

Chunks of just such a film were broadcast last week across South Carolina, airtime bought by a Political Action Committee backing the Gingrich campaign. They are brilliantly done, so effective that the New York Times–evidently worried for the overall reputation of capitalism–ran a very comical piece a few days ago critiquing the commercials as going altogether too far and being marred by error. Gingrich announced piously that “I’m calling on them to either edit out every single mistake or to pull the entire film. They cannot run the film if it has errors in it.” But the nominally independent Political Action Committee refused, demanding a clarificatory interview with Romney.

South Carolina has been faring badly in the current national slump. Tough talk about job-killers, particularly Mormon millionaire job-killers, commands a sympathetic audience. By Tuesday the press was hailing Gingrich’s Monday debate performance as worthy of Edmund Burke, which indeed it was, since in its rancid racism towards black people it rivaled Burke’s slurs on the French revolutionaries.

It became clear by midweek the ads were taking their toll on Romney. By Wednesday the polls were showing the Mormon millionaire with 30 per cent support and Gingrich surging, with 27 per cent of the vote. By Friday, Gingrich was running ahead 32-30 in some polls, after his carefully rehearsed “Have you no shame, Sir” reproof to CNN’s John King following the latter’s opening question about the “open relationship” Gingrich’s second wife Marilyn says he proposed after disclosing his affair with Callista. Marilyn’s disclosure probably won Gingrich an extra slice of the state’s male vote, on ground that this is the sort of thing men blurt out when driven into a corner in a “her or me” confrontation with the Missus.

On Tuesday Romney finally lifted a corner of the previously tightly sealed file containing his tax returns. The partial disclosure won’t help him, nor his evasiveness in the debate. He said his effective tax rate was “probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything.” That 15 per cent is on investment income–a huge perk for the very rich–as opposed to the higher rates on wages and salaries–up to 35 per cent–paid by most Americans. He also deprecated his speaking fees last year of $374,327 as “not very much.” This man definitely lacks the common touch. So much for my fears last week for the future of the election industry after what looked like an imminent Romney closeout. –Alexander Cockburn

The issue won’t stop there, of course. A fundamentalist Christian group has already announced it will try to put the new law on the ballot in November. There’s something terribly wrong about putting basic, government-recognized rights of a class of people to a popular vote. However, in this case, polling shows that marriage equality is now favored by a solid majority of Washington voters. Gay marriage is likely to be here to stay.

Even ten years ago this was unthinkable. When gay and lesbian groups started seriously agitating for marriage rights, there was lots of criticism within the gay community that the effort was a waste of time – that limited resources should be put to more pragmatic use, like pushing for anti-discrimination laws in housing and employment.

The sea change in public opinion since then on whether gay marriage is a good idea has been enormous. The coming Washington law would not have been possible without that massive shift in public perception first – and without those first six states (particularly Massachusetts and New York), where legalization of same-sex marriages led to none of the apocalyptic outcomes predicted by critics. The institution of marriage was not destroyed, or even harmed. Plagues of locusts did not materialize. In fact, nothing happened at all – except that thousands of loving couples who wanted to share a legal contract for a (hopefully) lifetime commitment together were suddenly able to do so.

While Gregoire and the various Olympia legislators that will vote gay marriage into law will get a lot of credit for a civil rights milestone, most of them did not lead on this issue. The leaders were legislators like Seattle’s Sen. Ed Murray, who has introduced this bill seven consecutive years without support (until now) from a cowardly governor and skittish legislative leadership, both from his own party. The leaders were the community activists and nonprofit groups that lobbied tirelessly in Olympia, year after year, often with little visible sign of progress. And most importantly, the leaders were the GLBTQ individuals in every city and town that over the past 30 years have increasingly lived their lives openly and proudly, and that by their example taught the people around them that who you love is less important than who you are.

There is a lesson in this trajectory for the seemingly endless litany of other issues where our elected “leaders” have not yet caught up with the public. We’re already seeing this arc in marijuana legalization. The same legislature that is set to legalize gay marriage will also, with notably less courage, likely punt on I-502, New Approach Washington’s initiative that was submitted to Olympia in December with some 355,000 signatures.

The legislature can either pass such an initiative itself, or submit it to voters in November; in the case of pot, it will almost certainly do the latter. The measure is thus likely to share the ballot with a gay marriage referendum. And as with gay marriage, pot legalization is polling favorably when it was not even being seriously discussed in mainstream political circles a decade ago, almost exclusively because activists have kept coming back – this is the third initiative attempt in three years – and because millions of ordinary people have realized that even if they don’t smoke weed, people they know do, and, well, it’s no big deal. Just like being a gay couple is no big deal.

Similarly, at the local and state level climate change activists are having an impact through years of persistence. The bill last year that phases out the state’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, the Transalta Centralia coal plant, was a rare victory of citizen activism over corporate influence.

Other issues don’t have this sort of dedicated constituency. Tax reform is desperately needed by a state whose antiquated tax structure virtually ensures declining per capita revenues over time, and which makes desperate shortfalls like the ones our state keeps facing a certainty in economic downturns. But it failed in the 2010 election because the groundwork hadn’t been laid. Tax opponents (e.g., Tim Eyman) have been organized for years, but proponents of the public and social services being gutted by successive budget cuts (e.g., education advocates) weren’t and often still aren’t focused on the structural question. Ditto for tackling the endless succession of corporate tax credits and loopholes riddling the state’s existing tax code.

The lesson: cheer gay marriage. Celebrate the long-overdue extension of a basic civil right to a significant number of your friends and neighbors. But remember that it didn’t happen because one elected official waved a wand. It happened because ordinary people, a lot of us, got involved and made it happen. The words of Frederick Douglass, as always, apply: Power concedes nothing without a demand.

Ever. –Geov Parrish

“But the resentment for the base that the Republican establishment has is obvious, and of course the Republican establishment knows that. They know that the Tea Party is not embraced, that the Republican establishment’s trying to marginalize the Tea Party. So really, at least for me, it’s not hard to understand. Now, there’s an abject sense of panic that has set in over, ‘Oh, no! You mean this race is gonna go on? Oh, no!’ Yeah, the race is gonna go on. See, they thought that this would be over before it started. Remember what I told you. ‘They’re gonna split the conservative vote and elect the moderate.’ They were gonna stand traditional theory on its head.…

They decided, ‘We’re gonna lose from the get-go. We’re gonna nominate a moderate. We’re gonna take conservatives in our party that we can’t stand and we’re gonna have as many of them up there as possible splitting vote.’”

Okay, so he’s a little bit batty with the “The Republican establishment wants to lose” and “they encouraged tons of conservatives to split the vote” paranoia. Rick Perry jumped in because he had money and a lot of people telling him he could win. Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich wanted to sell books and get a gig on Fox. Michele Bachmann wanted to hear the sound of her name. Rick Santorum just wanted to be in the mix. None of them were there because the Wizard of Oz ordered them there.

But the other, potentially stronger GOPers that could have challenged Perry all had good reasons to demur, above and beyond their calculus that an incumbent President, even a black man in a bad economy, would be tougher to beat than an open seat in 2016. Jeb Bush needs more time for people to forget his brother. Mitch Daniels couldn’t convince his family. Chris Christie decided, probably wisely given his often anemic approval ratings in New Jersey, that he wasn’t ready. Sarah Palin didn’t want to have to work. Haley Barbour was smart enough to cop to the fact that a fat white man from Mississippi challenging the nation’s first black president was terrible optics. And all of them saw what happened to the money supply when others tried to tap the same fat cat money base Mitt Romney has had sewn up for two years. You remember Tim Pawlenty, right? Jon who?

For the same reasons, none are about to jump in at the last second. Plus, they all value their chances in 2016 too much.

And, so, the Republican field is what it is: no conspiracy necessary. But Limbaugh is correct that the GOP powers that be are in full panic mode over the emergence of Newt Gingrich. Romney and Gingrich (and Santorum and Ron Paul, for that matter) don’t match up well against Obama, but for different reasons. Romney, with all his millions in SuperPAC money, still can’t buy enough consultants and Madison Avenue magic to fool people into thinking he’s authentic. He’ll say anything to convince people of it, true, but he’s never had a real emotion in his life – his public life, anyway – and the GOP crazies know he’s not one of them. Not to mention that whole Mormons descended from ancient aliens thing, and that Romney himself may well have been an anchor baby. Willard is a bizarre combination of plastic panderer and smug, unapologetic banner-carrier for the one percent. And, it turns out, he’s also an inept campaigner. No wonder the base hates him.

Gingrich, on the other hand, is a skilled server of red meat to the GOP base – but has extraordinarily high negatives among everyone else. You need a good chunk of that everyone else to win the White House.

And, so, panic. Romney doesn’t excite anyone, and unless he taps a so-far-not-seen flair for connecting with, well, anyone, Obama will probably beat him. But the GOP establishment panic comes because the more volatile Newt is more likely to drive people to vote against him. They see their chances at winning the Senate and even keeping control of the House as much lower with a Gingrich nomination.

And, so, with the regularity of a stopped clock, Rush is right on this one. The big money and elected officials who traditionally run the GOP really are going to pull out all the stops to torpedo Gingrich. But Rush is wrong that they want to lose. Quite the opposite: unlike His Flatulence, they know that the special brand of craziness that the GOP has become is, fortunately, still a recipe for slaughter in a general election. They’d rather not go there. Even if it means nominating a lameass like Willard Romney.

Sen. Ralph Shortey of Oklahoma City introduced on Tuesday Senate Bill 1418, which prohibits “the sale or manufacture of food or products which contain aborted human fetuses.” He says he based the bill on an article he read online about an anti-abortion group boycotting companies that allegedly use embryonic stem cells to research and develop artificial sweeteners.

Hey, I read an article online that says the government is hoarding alien technology in a secret warehouse in Nevada. Let’s pass a bill requiring that the technology must have U.S. citizenship.

Presumably food products using fetuses that died a natural death are A-OK.

Never, ever think that Republicans cannot get stupider. It’s one challenge they’re always up for.

First, there’s Romney’s own, casual admission that he paid “about 15%” in income taxes last year, but of course he won’t know for sure until his accountant finishes his tax return (sometime in April, after most of the early primaries are over). He could release his 2010 tax return, however, as other candidates have, but he won’t, which says lot about the amount of government secrecy we can expect from a Romney administration.

About that 15%: it’s less than half of what his wealthy father paid in taxes during his time as an American millionaire, which was 37%. Ah, those good old days. And I’m not even talking about a time that was in the distant past. Ten years ago, Mitt Romney would have paid about 25% in taxes, and 15 years ago, in the mid-1990’s, he would have paid 29%. That was during the booming years of Bill Clinton’s first term, when the economy gained around 11.5 million jobs (which puts the entire Bush Jr. presidency to shame) and the federal government ran a surplus, not a deficit.

So whenever you hear right-wing pundits complain that raising taxes on the rich will hurt the economy, you should know better. The rich have paid much higher tax rates during some of the best years of the U.S. economy.

Let’s remember that the federal deficit wasn’t a side effect of the George W. Bush years; it was the whole point. Bush was heavily supported by Wall Street, the oil industry, and defense contractors because he was willing to spend taxpayer money (and borrow even more) on two wasteful wars in the Middle East, which turned out to be very profitable for them. And of course Bush pushed through two major tax cuts for the wealthy that were very dear to the hearts of his wealthy constituents.

Now comes Romney, who is the very embodiment of everything that is Wall Street. His fortune, estimated to be around $250 million, puts him in the upper ranks of the 1%. His tax rate of 15% means that he earns no wages or salary; he makes all of his money through his investments. His work history, as former CEO of Bain Capital, means he has yet to learn what an honest day’s work in the real economy—the one that manufactures real goods and provides services to average Americans—really means.

Bain Capital is a private equity firm. Private equity firms engage in leveraged buyouts. They collect a big pool of cash from wealthy investors and use that pool of cash to buy a distressed company. They “turn that company around” by cutting what they determine to be excess: they sell off some of the assets and lay off a lot of people. Once they’ve turned the company into a money making enterprise, they use that company as collateral for big loans, which are then used to buy more distressed companies, and so on. And the amount of profit that private equity firms demand from the companies they buy is very high, because they have a whole bunch of wealthy investors who want a big, exciting rate of return.

Romney is no longer CEO of Bain Capital, but a large portion of his fortune is invested in Bain Capital’s various investment funds. And at least $25 million of his fortune is invested in offshore funds that Bain set up in the Cayman Islands.

Romney and his financial advisors have all denied that he invested in those funds to avoid paying U.S. taxes. They all say something like: “he chose those funds because of the assets they invested in, not for tax reasons.” That’s disingenuous, to say the least. Every investor looks at the total rate of return of the investment he’s considering. The “total rate of return” is what the fund pays the investor less any costs to the investor, including fees paid to the fund managers and income taxes. There would be no other reason for Bain to set up a fund in the Cayman Islands except to help the investors avoid paying U.S. income taxes. Bain has a total of 138 offshore investment funds in the Cayman Islands.

Now, many politicians—both Republicans and Democrats—have railed against companies and individuals who use offshore banks and other foreign institutions to avoid paying U.S. taxes. The U.S. Treasury has been cracking down on taxpayers who don’t declare their foreign earnings, because the Treasury has a vested interest in knowing the extent of the problem, and for good reason. Offshore investments suck an estimated $100 billion dollars in tax revenue out of the U.S. Treasury.

But the problem could be worse than that. Funds that are organized in a foreign country but purchase and trade mostly U.S. assets allow foreigners to invest in the U.S. without having to pay U.S. taxes on that income, as they would otherwise be required to do if they bought and sold those assets directly. And U.S. assets, particularly real estate, are looking like a very good deal to foreign investors these days. The U.S. Treasury needs that tax revenue now more than ever, but can’t collect it from funds organized as offshore tax havens. Don’t expect Mitt Romney to change that law.

Nor can we expect Mitt Romney to advocate for a repeal of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, as Barack Obama has done. Those tax cuts have rewarded Romney, and his Wall Street cohorts, beyond their wildest dreams.

Jan. 16, 1776: Continental Congress approves Washington’s order to enlist free Negroes. 1941: Formation of Tuskegee Airmen, first black Army Air Corps squad of combat pilots.

Jan. 18, 1856: Birth of African-American physician Daniel Hale Williams, first to perform open-heart surgery and founder of Provident Hospital in Chicago. 1965: Segregationists assault Martin Luther King, Jr., in Selma, Alabama, as he registers as first black guest in a hotel built a century earlier with slave labor.

Jan. 20, 1936: Birth of Barbara Jordan, first black elected to the Texas senate since Reconstruction, first southern black female Congresswoman, and first black woman buried in Texas State Cemetery. 1985: US officially observes Martin Luther King Day for first time.

Jan. 22, 1801: Toussaint L’Ouverture, liberator of Haiti, enters Santiago to battle the French colonialist forces. 1973: World Council of Churches announces South African divestment.

Jan. 23, 1976: Actor, athlete, and commie activist Paul Robeson dies, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Blacklisting during the Cold War destroyed his career. 1977: ABC begins week-long broadcast of Roots mini-series (from the book by Alex Haley, most watched mini-series in history and means of introduction to reality of slavery of many white US citizens.

Jan. 25, 1851: Sojourner Truth addresses first Black Women’s Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio.

Jan. 26, 1948: President Harry Truman issues Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in the US Armed Forces. 1956: Martin Luther King, Jr. arrested for the first time; his home will be bombed in a few days.

Jan. 27, 1969: Detroit African-American auto workers known as Eldon Avenue Axle Plant Revolutionary Union Movement lead wildcat strike against racism and bad working conditions. Since the 1967 Detroit rebellion, African American workers have organized militant groups in several Detroit auto plants; the most famous was Dodge Revolutionary Union movement, or DRUM. Combining Black-Power nationalism and workplace militancy, they compare factories to plantations and white supervisors to brutal overseers. Shutting down inner-city plants in more than a dozen wildcat strikes, they criticize both the seniority system and grievance procedures as racist. United Auto Workers (UAW) leaders quickly denounce the protests, calling the dissidents “black fascists.” The revolutionary groups leave a permanent imprint on the Detroit labor movement. Most inner-city UAW locals will soon be headed by African Americans, some of them veterans of the insurgency.

Jan. 28, 1960: Death of Zora Neale Hurston, Harlem Renaissance writer, in Durham, North Carolina. 1970: Arthur Ashe, first black man to win Wimbledon, member of the US team, refused entry to South Africa for the South African Open tennis competition.

Jan. 29, 1926: Violette Neatley Anderson becomes the first African-American woman admitted to practice before the US Supreme Court.

Jan. 30, 1844: Richard Greener becomes the first African-American to graduate from Harvard University.

Jan. 31, 1865: By a narrow margin, the US House of Representatives passes the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery; it becomes part of the Constitution later that year. 1919: Jackie Robinson, first African-American to play major league baseball, is born in Cairo, Georgia. 1962: Samuel L. Gravely becomes first black person to command a US warship.