December 12, 2012- Gov. Scott Walker’s top campaign promise was that the state would create 250,000 private-sector jobs by the end of his four-year term.

Walker has made the vow in a variety of forums, including speeches, videos, and on his campaign and official websites. But the state’s progress in job creation was last in the nation in 2011 -- and there have been no signs of a significant turnaround in 2012.

-By RMuse

December 12, 2012- An inanimate object or representational figure manipulated by an entertainer can be amusing and tell a story, and it is insignificant if the puppet-master is evil or kind, as long as the puppet is benign. However, a person manipulated by an outside entity, regardless their outward behavior, can be deceiving and dangerous. Over the past few days, Michigan’s governor and GOP legislature moved quickly to pass and sign a bill into law at the direction of their puppet masters the Koch brothers with assistance from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and Americans for Prosperity.

Why wealthy political investors will keep pouring money into politics—until they’re stopped

-By Robert Reich

December 12, 2012- I keep hearing that the billionaires and big corporations that poured all that money into the 2012 election learned their lesson. They lost their shirts and won’t do it again.

Don’t believe that for an instant.

It’s true their political investments didn’t exactly pay off this time around.

“Right now there is stunned disbelief that Republicans fared so poorly after all the money they invested,” said Brent Bozell, president of For America, an Alexandria, Maryland-based nonprofit that advocates for Christian values in politics.

“Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million this cycle,” Donald Trump tweeted. “Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money.”

 Republicans attempted to stop Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer from speaking out against extremist anti-women legislation being pushed through the legislature during lame duck session.

-By Robert Mackey

December 12, 2012- As my colleague Jennifer Preston reported, there were scuffles between union activists and supporters of Michigan’s Republican-dominated Legislature outside the state Capitol in Lansing on Tuesday, as the lawmakers approved sweeping changes to the way unions will be financed.

At one stage during the tense standoff, union members opposed to the so-called right-to-work legislation ripped down a tent erected by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity. Several supporters of the conservative group recorded video of their efforts to defend the tent, but the footage that got the most attention, with more than half a million views on YouTube, was an 80-second clip that showed a conservative comedian named Steven Crowder getting punched in the face by a union activist.

-By Paige Lavender

December 11, 2012- The Koch brothers are postponing their semi-annual meeting with donors, Republican politicians and conservative activists, National Review reports.

The meeting, originally scheduled to take place in January, will now be held in April. Charles Koch announced the postponement in an email obtained by National Review, where he also addressed the "disappointing" results of the 2012 election.

December 11, 2012- A narrative gaining currency among Rick Snyder's defenders explains his flip-flop on right-to-work legislation as a reluctant response to labor unions who put Proposal 2 on the November ballot over the governor's objections, then refused to bargain with good faith with him afterward.

But the truth? Snyder hasn't gotten much respect from the groups backing right-to-work, either.

Americans For Prosperity, founded by billionaire tea party titans David and Charles Koch, is heralding Michigan's imminent passage of right-to-work legislation laws in Michigan as "the shot heard around the world" in the fight to weaken unions.

But the group was also a significant financial backer of Proposal 5, an effort to amend the Michigan Constitution to bar tax increases without a two-thirds legislative supermajority.

So why would Snyder turn from labor unions to a group that was behind a constitutional amendment he described as "bad public policy"?

READ THE RIGHT-TO-WORK BILLS:

In the final part of our three part interview, Thomson Reuters Digital Editor Chrystia Freeland spoke with us about the super rich and their feeling of persecution. Freeland gives examples of wealthy individuals feeling victimized, including a Wall Street hedge fund manager who sent an email to friends with the subject line “battered wives,” comparing their treatment by President Obama to that of battered wives. Another person Freeland spoke to said “the rich today in America have become an oppressed minority similar to oppressed ethnic minorities.”

Do you think the super rich in America have been persecuted by government? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

December 8, 2012- New episodes of "Real Time" are over for the year, which means Bill Maher is on vacation. But that hasn't stopped him from blogging a few choice words here and there about the financial crisis.

He recently addressed the fiscal cliff in two posts on his "Real Time" blog, the first of which was more of a speculation on exactly when Obama is going to go completely grey. The second, "The Fiscal Cliff Part II: Electric Boogaloo", was, conversely, a straight explanation of what the fiscal cliff is, why it may not be quite as dire as sounds, and how Obama can use the crisis both to do something about global warming and to settle a score.

-By David Edwards

December 7, 2012- The Fox News morning show Fox & Friends on Friday declared that a law in Michigan that weakens unions was a “Victory for Capitalism!”

On Thursday, the Republican-controlled state legislature in Michigan had quickly pushed through a new measure that would make the birthplace of the country’s labor movement a right-to-work state, crippling unions by prohibiting requirements that employees join or pay dues.

“Yesterday, the legislature of both of houses passed a law making Michigan the 24th right to work state, bans mandatory union dues,” Fox News co-host Steve Doocy reported while a graphic on the screen read, “Victory for Capitalism!”

“If you work for the UAW, you work for Chrysler, Ford, places like that — there are a lot of people who are upset,” Doocy noted.