Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Robert Reich asks a few impertinent (but important) questions about plutocratic encroachment on the U.S.' political system.

- Catherine McKenna explains why it's important to try to make a difference in our political system. But Chris Cobb reports on what happens to those who try under the Cons' regime.

- Gerald Caplan wonders whether anybody involved in the Clusterduff - including Stephen Harper, his chief of staff, his hand-picked senators and his core office staff - has ever told anything approaching the truth. But I think we've already established the answer to that one. 

- Shirley Muir argues that the business sector should see the Lac-Mégantic rail explosion as a wake-up call. But in reporting on the anti-regulation lobbying of the rail sector, Linda Gyulai finds little evidence that's about to happen.

- Finally, LowPayIsNotOK thoroughly critiques an attempt by McDonalds to "help" employees to survive on their McJobs:

And the most important takeaway is that even low-wage employers are well aware that nobody can get by on the meager wage levels they offer.