• Jeff Peckman, Chief Proponent of the Extra Campaign.
• Ann Druyan, American author, media producer...co-author of the "Cosmos" series and book with her late husband Carl Sagan (and Steven Soter).
• Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute.
• Robert Greenwald, filmmaker, activist, founder of Brave New Films.

• When will the revolution begin? And don’t start it without Thom!
• Everything you know is wrong - is Denver going to create the first extraterrestrial affairs commission?
• Geeky science rocks! "Cosmos".
• Toxic toys.
• Rethink Afghanistan.

• Revolution, Beatles (video).
• Reindeer Boogie, Trisha Yearwood.
• Because I Got High, Afroman.
• World Hold On, Bob Sinclar (video).
• Warning, Incubus.
• Simply The Best, Tina Turner (video).
• I Believe In Santa Claus, Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton.
• Toxic Toys, Air Farce Live (video).
• One Day, Matisyahu.
• Democracy, Leonard Cohen.

" We've got a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy. We've got a bunch of millionaires and billionaires running the show in Congress, in the Executive and in the Judiciary. And, you had better believe that there is no way that Congress will pass any bill that requires any real sacrifice on the part of the wealthy. People in power do what is in THEIR self-interests---and, since the people in power aren't the middle-class---but, the upper crust of society, the middle-class and poor are screwed.

But, what the wealthy in power fail to understand is the seething anger of the people. And, the truth is, there are more of us than there are of them. When mamas can't feed their babies. When unemployment reaches epic proportions (and, it will---if you know anything about real monetary policy and how it works in this country---and, are watching the numbers---then you know, it will)---there will be revolution. And, sadly, it will be bloody. There will be riots in the streets."

"Bankers in the City of London reacted with fury to UK government plans to levy an immediate 50 per cent supertax on banks’ bonus pay-outs, saying the move played into the hands of rival financial centres.

In his annual pre-Budget report, outlining government spending and revenue plans, Alistair Darling, the UK finance minister, announced a 50 per cent levy on discretionary bonus pay-outs to curb big bank bonuses that have provoked public anger. He said banks that had been battered by the financial crisis should be rebuilding their capital rather than paying out generous bonuses to their staff."

"The compromise reached late Wednesday between pro-reform House Democrats and the banker-friendly wing of the party could significantly weaken consumer protection in states where lawmakers support tougher rules against tactics such as predatory lending and excessive ATM fees than historically submissive federal regulators.

Members of the New Democrat Coalition -- whose deference to big banks is reflected in the massive amounts of money they have taken from the financial services industry since 2008 -- temporarily blocked the landmark financial regulatory reform bill from hitting the House floor on Wednesday.

At issue was whether federal regulations should be a floor or a ceiling for consumer protection in the states, particularly as they affect big national banks like JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

The Obama administration, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, state attorneys general and a coalition of consumer advocates and law professors want states to be able to enforce tougher consumer financial protections.

The big banks, obviously, want federal regulations -- which they have found relatively easy to influence -- to preempt any more onerous state rules for banks operating in more than one state.

Working on behalf of the big banks, the New Dems were able to extract a compromise that will allow federal regulations to preempt state laws on a case-by-case basis."

Grayson: "I don't know. You know, on the Internet there's an acronym that's used to apply to situations like this. It's called "STFU." I don't think I can say that on the air, but I think you know what that means."

Matthews: "Well, give me the first part."

Grayson: "Shut.""

Matthews: "Oh! I got you. Stop talking, in crude language. Well, I don't think you're gonna get him to do that."

"That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy - from the eighteenth-century royalists who held special privileges from the crown...

"But since that struggle, man's inventive genius released new forces in our land, forces which reordered the lives of our people. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution - all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a problem for those who sought to remain free.

"For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations and banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service...

"Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise...

"The royalists I have spoken of, the royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live...

"These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. But in their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 27 June 1936, "A Rendezvous With Destiny" Speech to the Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.