By DJ Fusion

The recommendations put forward by the two co-chairs of President Obama’s deficit reduction commission are so “over the top,” says consumer advocate Ralph Nader, “if there’s anything that ought to get the liberal left going, it’s this monstrosity, which Obama has to take some responsibility for.” The former presidential candidate says the assault on social programs “shows the hand of the corporate Democrats and their Republican allies in a very distinct way.” What’s not in the co-chairs’ proposal is as glaring as what’s included. “They didn’t say we should have a speculation tax on derivatives and other transactions of Wall Street,” for example, “which economists have estimated could raise $400 billion a year.”

Black Is Back Rally in Washington, DC

Eugenia Charles reports on the cholera epidemic in Haiti, where international aid “is not being used to support the Haitian people”; People’s Organization for Progress director Larry Hamm calls for renewed grassroots organizing to “build a movement stronger than the one we had in the Sixties”; and Black is Back chairman Omali Yeshitela says Barack Obama represents “white power in a Black face.”