Protestors don't want cuts to government programs

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - Wednesday, vigils took place across the country to protest cutting of major government programs.

The protests are called Brown Bag Lunch Vigils, because they take their lunch break to talk to the public and tell Congress about protecting the middle and low income classes.

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MESA, AZ -- In a stunning blow to the Tea Party movement, a huge turnout in Mesa's conservative LD 18 overwhelmingly voted out Arizona's hardline State Senate President Russell Pearce in a historic recall election today.

As the self-proclaimed "Tea Party President," Pearce's national role as the figurehead for punitive immigration measures also turned the recall election into a referendum on the state's notorious SB 1070 "papers, please" immigration law, which Pearce had made the hallmark of his legislative career.

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Columbus—Americans who are frustrated with the broken politics of the moment will have plenty of opportunities to Occupy the Polls on Tuesday.

That’s what happened in Boulder, Colorado, last week, when voters shook things up by backing a referendum proposal that calls on Congress to enact a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision that corporations can spend as they choose to buy elections. The same election saw Boulder voters endorse a plan to end the city’s reliance on private power companies and replace them with a public utility.

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On October 21, when President Obama announced that all American troops would be withdrawing from Iraq, I learned that I needed surgery on a blocked carotid artery, and soon. Ten years earlier, between the 9/11 attacks and the US invasion of Iraq, I was having quintuple bypass surgery. The Cedars-Sinai doctors even delayed the operation in case Los Angeles was struck that day.

For ten years, though, my heart kept its faithful beat. For 3,500 straight days and nights, I researched, wrote, spoke, taught and lobbied against the Iraq War. I tried to avoid pepper spray and being stomped, but for everything else, the beat was steady. When Obama made the withdrawal announcement last week, it was as if my heart was saying, Take me back to the repair shop. And so I will go once more, and will, I hope, come out battling against the wars and injustices of the next decade.

On Saturday, the day after Obama’s statement, my heart felt good as I introduced Representative Barbara Lee at a Los Angeles fundraiser. In the lightness of her mood I sensed a burden had been lifted from her heart as well.

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