This is a crosspost from ThinkProgress.

Travis Waldron  filed this report from a campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

A member of the local Rotary Club stood yesterday to ask former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) a question weighing on the minds of millions of jobless Americans:  At a time when corporations are sitting on record amounts of cash, why are the Americans who can least afford it being asked to shoulder the burden of trillions of dollars in potential budget cuts?

Stunning, just stunning. Nearly 17,000 people applied for jobs at a Ford plant in Kentucky, according to USA Today. The applications are now going into a lottery and Ford will determine who gets to proceed to be considered for the 1,800 jobs that pay $15.51 an hour.  No doubt not everyone who applied is unemployed, to be sure–but it’s likely a good number don’t have jobs.

The spotlight’s been shining pretty bright this week on the right-wing Koch brothers-funded and corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel examined new information out in recent days and reported that even though Gov. Scott Walker (R) and Republican lawmakers downplayed connections between ALEC’s agenda and their legislative efforts, “the similarities between some Wisconsin legislation and ALEC draft bills are striking.”

Here’s one contributor to the deficit Republicans don’t want to talk about. Loopholes in our tax laws allow multinational companies and hedge funds to shelter enormous sums of money from taxes by creating offshore identities and using tax-haven banks. This practice costs nearly $100 billion in taxes each year, according to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

A complaint filed today with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) describes how Deutsche Telekom has engaged in anti-union activity in the United States that violates the organization’s guidelines for multinational enterprises.

It’s not enough that Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder took away basic democratic rights of cities and towns by imposing a “financial martial law” that can virtually abolish a local government in favor of an unelected Snyder appointee.

Massey Energy managers hid serious safety problems at the Upper Big Branch (W.Va.) mine from federal mine safety officials by keeping two sets of records, Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) officials revealed this morning. An April 5, 2010, explosion at the mine killed 29 miners.

When Republicans walked out of budget talks last week, short-circuiting efforts to ensure the federal government does not default on its loans, the Republicans’ chief budget negotiator, Eric Cantor, led the way. Now in a stunning revelation, Salon reports that Cantor may have a vested interest in making sure the government defaults on its loans–he stands to gain substantial sums of money if it does.

This just in: Walker must have felt the heat—he canceled the bill signing at Badger Sheet Metal Works and will be signing it elsewhere.

When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signs his budget bill, he will put pen to paper in a ceremony at a business owned by a convicted tax evader, reports Think Progress. The Wisconsin Budget Project says Walker’s budget includes $2.3 billion in tax cuts for corporation and the wealthy over the next 10 years.

It comes as no surprise that the right-wing, Koch brothers-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) says the “best” of the nation’s states’ economies can be found in states where corporations are king and the middle class is an after-thought, if that, in state policies such as taxes, environmental laws and wages.