This is a cross-post from the Alliance for Justice blog, Justice Watch. 

We all know how big business has eroded the American dream by getting Congress and the executive branch to change the rules to favor corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. But it hasn’t stopped with two branches of government. Corporate special interests have spent decades working to put their thumb on the scales of justice. The campaign finance decision in  Citizens United  is only the most prominent example. 

It’s darn hard to find an area where we and Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan agree. But there is at least one. Ryan says he is a big fan of the band Rage Against the Machine. Who knew Ryan—the Ayn Rand disciple and worshipper of unfettered corporate power—could find common ground with Rage, which has made a career out of singing and fighting for progressive causes and against corporate greed?

We’ve been talking a lot lately about the current financial state of play in electoral politics. Despite the mega-finances poured into the current election cycle, working families have more power than they think—power at the polls.

It’s not just the presidential race that’s being flooded with money. Every political race—from  your local sheriff  to  state and local judges  to your state  governors  and  legislators —is receiving more donations from an ever greedier financial elite.

“There is simply a better payoff by courting seven-figure donors,” said Matt Schlapp, a former White House political director for George W. Bush, in a Politico story Tuesday.

The story, “ Election 2012: The Myth of the Small Donor ,” details the meteoric rise of the mega-donor. Multimillion-dollar donations from people like Sheldon Adelson, Frank VanderSloot and the Koch brothers are “quickly diminishing one of the few avenues—outside of voting—for average folks to shape elections, help determine candidates’ viability and affect the course of the country.”

If the bad guys in the classic movie, “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” had been corporate apologists or obnoxious Trump-like rich tycoons, the classic line about badges might read this way, “Government? We don’t need no stinkin’ government.”  

In a column on AlterNet Paul Buchheit dispels what he calls “the bull of Wall Street” and cites five good reasons why the super-rich and big business may need government more than the rest us.

We regularly hear variations on that theme from the wealthy in the form of the tired old saw “I made it on my own…didn’t need any government help.” Corporate CEO’s and lobbyists rail against rules and regulations that supposedly stifle entrepreneurship and eat profits.

Chris Garlock, communications director of the  Metropolitan Washington [D.C.] Council, AFL-CIO , and managing editor of Union City , sends us this.

If The Wall Street Journal is complaining about it, " The Newsroom " must be doing something right for working people.

“For the second week in a row, Charles and David Koch were strafed by HBO’s show ‘The Newsroom,’ the one-hour drama about a fictional cable TV news show and its volatile anchorman,” huffed The Wall Street Journal yesterday in “ HBO’s ‘Newsroom’ Takes Aim at Koch Brothers .”

On Wednesday , we asked you to tell us what you think about Caterpillar, which made $4.9 billion in profits last year, demanding the nearly 800 workers accept a six-year wage freeze, doubled health care premiums and cuts to pensions. The workers, members of Machinists (IAM) Local 851 , said “NO!” and have been on strike for more than three months. On the blog and through  Facebook some 200 of our readers left comments. Here’s a sample of what you told us:

Braving record heat and dangerous midwestern summer thunderstorms, groups of 15 members from the Machinists (IAM) Local 851 take four-hour shifts every day picketing the gates of the Caterpillar factory in Joliet, Ill. This is their 12th week on strike after Caterpillar, which made $4.9 billion in profits last year, demanded the nearly 800 workers accept a six-year wage freeze, doubled health care premiums and cuts to pensions.  What do you think about Caterpillar making record profits and demanding its workers take a six-year pay freeze?

Today, at more than 300 events around the country, activists from the Communications Workers of America ( CWA ), other AFL-CIO unions, Jobs with Justice ( JwJ ), 99% Power coalition and other allies are mobilized for a National Day of Action for a fair contract for 45,000 Verizon workers who are members of CWA and the Electrical Workers ( IBEW ).    

Verizon is a $100 billion company that has made tens of billions in profits, yet is demanding $10,000 a year from each worker in compensation cuts. At the same time, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam got a 200 percent raise from $7.2 million to $23.1 million, courtesy of the communication giant’s board of directors.

Members of the 99% Power coalition  disrupted Verizon's annual shareholder meeting in Huntsville, Ala., six separate times today. In each instance, a group of protesters interrupted the proceedings using “Mic Check” tactics, followed by chants such as “Shame on you!” “Verigreedy!” and “People over profit!”  After each occurrence, the chanting group was led out by security people, with many in the audience applauding them. There were no arrests.