For the past five months, American Crystal Sugar, the largest sugar beet producer in the country, has locked out 1,300 of its unionized workers in Minnesota who had the audacity to demand a fair contract with the company. Gov. Mark Dayton (D) has implored the corporation to renew negotiations, to no avail — instead of returning to the negotiating table, Crystal Sugar has hired replacement workers.

Over the holiday season the workers “struggle to survive,” Dayton said, and “the lockout has devastated families, communities, and the economy in Northwestern Minnesota.” Desperate to get back to work but determined to stand by their principles, the workers have had prayer vigils with faith leaders in the community.

But Crystal Sugar President and CEO Dave Berg apparently has absolutely no sympathy for his workers’ plight. In fact, at a recent meeting with shareholders, he compared them to a cancerous tumor:

In a meeting of company shareholders on November 7 in Grafton, ND, Berg likened the workers to a 21-pound cancerous tumor. According to an audio recording of the meeting, Berg told the story of a sick friend who was diagnosed with cancer and had a massive tumor removed. “That’s a scary deal. He was sick for a long time,” said Berg. “We can’t let a labor contract make us sick forever and ever and ever. We have to treat the disease and that’s what we’re doing here.”

Workers have responded with disappointment and outrage. Sarah Gust, who has worked at ACSC for 40 years remarked, “The fact that Dave Berg would refer to our union, our contract as a cancerous tumor is deeply offensive to me and many of my co-workers. Some of us have had cancer or have lost loved ones to cancer. It’s a tragic, devastating disease. And that’s how Crystal Sugar management sees our union. I tell you, this just shows how much respect Dave Berg and the management have for us workers.”

Listen to the audio here.

Discussing his strategy for dealing with the union workers, Berg again used the analogy: “At some point that tumor’s got to come out. That’s what we’re doing.” Sadly, comparing unionized labor to cancer is nothing new amongst conservatives, who evidently believe workers shouldn’t be able to bargain for fair wages, benefits, and working conditions.

Another locked out worker who has been with the company for 16 years said, “Our contract represents years of struggle to protect good jobs at Crystal and build a mutually respectful relationship with management. Now, Dave Berg is throwing all of that away for greed.”

Gov. Dayton has made it clear that it’s ASC’s recalcitrance and attempt to squash labor for profit that’s preventing a solution. “It is time for American Crystal’s management to reach a fair agreement with its workers, who have contributed so much to the company’s current profitability,” he observed.

2012 GOP presidential contender and Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been plummeting in the polls recently, with the latest numbers showing him at 8 percent in South Carolina and just 2 percent in Florida. In an apparent attempt to revive his campaign, Perry has decided that espousing anti-bank populism is the right approach. Perry said in a speech in New Hampshire today that the bankers who wrecked the economy should be thrown in jail and that he opposes executives at bailed out banks receiving bonuses.

However, his solution to the problem of banks’ undue influence in the economy is to simply promise “no more bailouts” and then have Congress pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution:

Not the large banks that were overleveraged. Not the insurance company that took on too much risk. Not even executives who continued to get these huge bonuses even after the walls had crumbled down. No, the people that are paying the price are average Americans. Main Street businesses. It’s our children who stand to inherit the worst fiscal mess in the history of this country. It is wrong, it is unfair, it is unjust. We shouldn’t be awarding taxpayer funded bonuses to Wall Street executives who defrauded those very same taxpayers. We ought to be locking ‘em up.

Mr. Speaker, when I’m the President of the United States, we will clean up corruption from K Street to Wall Street so that they can not gamble with our childrens’ future again. And it starts with a simple promise. No more bailouts, whether we’re talking about bailing out bankers in America or we’re talking about bankers in Europe. No more bailouts. It continues with my pledge to end wasteful earmarks. And I won’t stop until Congress and the American people pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Watch it:

It’s entirely unclear how Perry thinks that a BBA — one of the worst ideas in Washington, for a whole host of reasons — would help rein in the biggest banks. Perhaps he thinks it will prevent the government from spending money in a TARP-like fashion? And for someone professing such a concern for the power of Wall Street, Perry is on record calling for the repeal of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. “This president does not understand how to free up the small businessmen and women or, for that matter, Wall Street,” Perry has said.

This isn’t the first time that Perry has gone populist when it comes to Wall Street, saying in 2008 that the banking industry “has too often been run on greed.” But when it comes to solutions, Perry suggests a favorite GOP budget gimmick that has nothing to do with the problem at hand.

It’s well known that America’s obesity epidemic disproportionately affects poor and minority children because of the country’s glut of cheap, unhealthy foods. Soft drinks are such a major culprit in the childhood obesity epidemic that some local governments have tried to levy taxes on them to reduce consumption. The Obama administration announced a plan to ban candy and sweetened beverages from schools.

Now, a new study reveals that soda companies have been targeting black and Latino children in high numbers, diminishing parents’ attempts to encourage their kids to eat right:

A new report from Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has found that beverage companies are aggressively targeting black and Latino kids with ads to promote sports, fruit and energy drinks. The products that are promoted to kids of color happen to be among the least healthy of the 644 products studied by researchers at the university.

Black children and teens saw 80 percent to 90 percent more ads compared with white youth, including more than twice as many for Sprite, 5-hour Energy, and Vitamin Water.

From 2008 to 2010, Latino children saw 49 percent more ads for sugary drinks and energy drinks on Spanish-language TV. Latino preschoolers saw more Spanish-language ads for Coca-Cola Classic, Kool-Aid, 7 Up, and Sunny D than older Latino children and teens did.

Colorlines notes that the two largest soda companies, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, have repeatedly promised to market less to children, who are more susceptible to advertising: “Coca-Cola, for example, has previously stated publicly that they wouldn’t market ads in TV, radio and print programming aimed at kids under the age of 12.”

But the report found that soda companies have just shifted to using more sophisticated and insidious forms of advertising that promise kids rewards for purchasing sugary drinks. Kids are exposed to these messages “often without their parents’ awareness.”

Companies’ targeting of minority children is a social justice issue as well as an economic one. Just like mortgage companies that focused their predatory lending on minority communities, soda companies are preying on a particularly vulnerable group (poor children) who are already suffering the ill effects of their product and have the most to lose from consuming more. For instance, these children are less likely to have health insurance to cover the numerous medical problems associated with obesity.

Earlier this month, a 60 Minutes investigation showed that House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) made stock trades based on information he received in private briefings during the 2008 financial crisis, earning nearly $30,000. Since then, Congress has discovered a deep desire to prevent this sort of insider trading, with nearly 100 representatives signing on to the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act in the House and Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) introducing companion legislation in the Senate.

2012 GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who has previously said that insider trading laws should “absolutely” apply to information lawmakers receive in private briefings, predicted last night during an event in South Carolina that lawmakers will eventually have to place their investments in a blind trust during their terms in office:

What we will migrate to, my prediction is, that members of Congress, on winning office will have to end up putting their money in blind trusts, managed by other people with no communication, because it is so clear that they have so much power that there’s no way to build trust in an environment where they can make money out of what they’re doing. And I think that’ll be the culmination of this whole series of things, is it will create a new pattern that says if you go into Congress and you have any significant amount of resources they go into a blind trust and are managed for you by somebody who does not talk to you, doesn’t have any insider knowledge about what’s going on in Congress. It’s unfortunate, but I think that’s going to become, something like that will be almost inevitable.

Watch it:

On this particular issue, Gingrich is doing a good job seizing the populist position. However, he has made clear that he doesn’t have much more than contempt for the wider concerns of the population when it comes to fairness in financial markets. Just yesterday, he called on President Obama to “repudiate the concept of the 99 and the 1,” a direct shot at the Occupy Wall Street movement’s call for an economy that works for everybody.

Senate Democrats yesterday introduced legislation — as they’ve been promising to — that would extend a soon-to-expire payroll tax cut, and pay for it by implementing a surtax on income above $1 million. Republicans, of course, are opposing the plan, reviving their false claims that taxing the very wealthiest Americans will hit small businesses and job creators.

In essence, the GOP is saying that it’s willing to allow higher taxes on middle- and lower-income Americans in order to prevent tax increases on the very wealthy. According to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice, provided to the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, the surtax would affect exceedingly few taxpayers, while a payroll tax cut expiration would wallop more than 100 million households:

The surtax would impact around 345,000 taxpayers, roughly 0.2 percent of taxpayers, or one in 500 of them. Those people would pay on average an additional 2.1 percent of their overall income, or just over 1/50th of that overall income, in taxes.

In a majority of states, only one-tenth of one percent, or one in 1,000 taxpayers, would pay this surtax.

And how many people would benefit from the payroll tax cut? According to the group, around 113 million tax filing units — either single workers or families that include more than one worker — would see their payroll tax cut extended. That’s a lot of people — well over 113 million workers, in fact.

Allowing the payroll tax cut to expire at the end of the year would hit middle-class families with a $1,000 tax increase, providing a substantial drag on the economy. In fact, according to Macroeconomic Advisers, allowing the payroll tax cut to lapse “would reduce GDP growth by 0.5 percent and cost the economy 400,000 jobs.” Other estimates are even worse, with Barclays’s estimating that a payroll tax increase could say 1.5 percent off of GDP growth.

The GOP has, time and again, blocked any legislation that would increase taxes by the slightest amount on the ultra-wealthy, even with tax revenue at a 60 year low, taxes on the rich the lowest they’ve been in a generation, and income inequality out of control. Instead, Republicans would prefer to raise taxes on the middle-class, knocking the economy where it can least afford it.

There is currently a special loophole in the tax codes of most states that allows online retailers like Amazon.com and Overstock.com to avoid charging the very same sales tax that brick-and-mortar stores are required to collect from customers. This loophole denies states billions of dollars of tax revenue. For example, in “2011 alone, Wisconsin will lose an estimated $127 million in uncollected sales tax on purchases made online.”

Yesterday, the Daytona Beach News-Journal asked Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) about this loophole. Scott admitted that the loophole is “not fair” to bricks-and-mortar stores, but then said he does not advocate closing it anyway because he doesn’t want to raise taxes:

Q: Today is Cyber Monday and thousands, if not millions, of Floridians will go online to make holiday purchases without paying the sales taxes they face in downtown shops. Bricks-and-mortar retailers not only provide jobs in our communities, but they pay property taxes that help fund services and education. What should the Legislature do to level the economic playing field?

SCOTT: It’s not fair. You shouldn’t be treated differently, whether you’re selling online or in bricks-and-mortar. That’s not fair. But, at the same time, my focus is not to do it where we raise taxes. I don’t want to take money out of the private sector. Is it raising taxes to have a mechanism that helps Florida collect the sales taxes we’re already supposed to pay? If it’s out of your pocket, that’s a tax.

Scott’s answer is disappointing, given how states ranging from California to Connecticut have moved to close this revenue-draining loophole.

2012 GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich today, during an event in South Carolina, said that he repudiates the very idea behind the Occupy Wall Street movement — that the economy should work for everyone, not just the richest 1 percent — and called on President Obama to do the same:

I repudiate, and I call on the President to repudiate, the concept of the 99 and the 1. It is un-American, it is divisive, it is historically false…You are not going to get job creation when you engage in class warfare because you have to attack the very people you hope will create jobs.

Watch it:

Gingrich may be spooked by the power of the narrative of the 99 percent, and is thus resorting to the tired charge of “class warfare” to deride anyone who points out the extent of income inequality in the U.S. But a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll found that “60 percent of respondents strongly agreed that America’s economic imbalance comes from policies that favor the rich over the rest of the country,” while 55 percent “said income inequality is a significant problem in the country.”

Online sales yesterday hit a new record for “Cyber Monday,” the Monday following Thanksgiving when online retailers have, in recent years, been boosting their efforts to take a larger chunk of the post-Thanksgiving shopping binge. According to data from Coremetrics, online sales yesterday were up 33 percent over 2010, and more than $1 billion in merchandise was sold. The average online order value was $198.26.

While this may be good news for retailers, it’s bad news for state budgets. As Matthew Gardner of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy noted yesterday, many online retailers are able to use a tax loophole to avoid collecting sales taxes, depriving states of badly needed revenue:

The National Retail Federation predicts this holiday season, 36 percent of all purchases will be made online. But too many of these purchases will be tax-free, due to an unfortunate loophole allowing e-retailers to shirk their role in helping states collect sales taxes — which cost states $10 billion last year alone, according to researchers at the University of Tennessee.

More tax-free sales mean fewer tax dollars for states — not to mention the consumer dollars that won’t circulate in our local economies because the current system rewards online shopping with out-of-state businesses.

The Supreme Court has ruled that retailers only have to collect sales tax in states where they have a physical presence. That ruling was handed down in 1992, before the rise of e-retailers, yet has allowed companies like Amazon.com to undercut competitors by not collecting sales tax. When lawmakers attempt, as many have, to close this loophole and force Amazon to collect sales tax, Amazon has threatened to simply leave those states.

According to the latest Fiscal Survey of States by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers, state budgets have improved slightly since the beginning of the Great Recession, but states “still face a dire fiscal situation.” The revenue generated from online sales could certainly help, but a pernicious tax loophole with no public policy purpose is depriving states of those dollars, forcing them to cut ever deeper into programs upon which people depend.

For months, major banks have been dealing with the fallout of the “robo-signing” scandal, following reports that the banks were improperly foreclosing on homeowners and, in many instances, falsifying paperwork that they were submitting to courts. Banks have been forced to go back and re-examine foreclosures to ensure that homeowners did not lose their homes unlawfully.

In the latest episode of this mess, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has found that banks — including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup — may have improperly foreclosed on up to 5,000 active members of the military:

Ten leading US lenders may have unlawfully foreclosed on the mortgages of nearly 5,000 active-duty members of the US military in recent years, according to data released by a federal regulator. [...]

The data released by the OCC are based on estimates prepared by lenders and their consultants. BofA said it is reviewing 2,400 foreclosures involving active-duty military families to see if they were conducted properly. Wells Fargo is reviewing 870 foreclosures and Citigroup is looking at 700 cases.

Also under review are 575 foreclosures at OneWest, formerly known as IndyMac; 87 at HSBC; 80 at US Bancorp; 56 at Aurora, formerly known as Lehman Brothers Bank; 25 at MetLife; six at Sovereign; and three at EverBank.

Back in April, JPMorgan Chase, which was not one of the 10 banks that the OCC examined, agreed to a $56 million settlement over allegations that it had overcharged members of the military on their mortgages. Chase Bank has even auctioned off the home of a military member the very day that he returned from Iraq. Two other mortgage servicers agreed in May to settle charges of improperly foreclosing on servicemembers.

Even without the banks illegally foreclosing, military members have been hard hit by the foreclosure crisis. Last year alone, 20,000 members of the military faced foreclosure, a 32 percent increase over 2008. The newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is tasked with ensuring that military members are treated fairly by financial services companies — a job that is obviously necessary — but Republicans in Congress have, so far, refused to confirm a director for the agency, leaving it unable to fulfill all of its responsibilities.