Scrooge & Marley, Inc. -- The True Conservative Agenda by Thom Hartmann

Hartmann wrote this piece this past summer, but with Christmas a week away and Republicans looking to dismantle Social Security, it's title and content are timely. Several parts of the article debunk conservative and libertarian assumptions about founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson, whom they claim would support their contemporary economic ideologies.

"Those seeking profits," Jefferson wrote, "were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government. No other depositories of power have ever yet been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their charge."