Tuesday 26 January '10 show notes

  • Guests:
    • TV presenter, radio host, entrepreneur, broadcaster and journalist Max Keiser.
    • Conservative John O'Hara, Assistant Director of Communications at the Heartland Institute, contributor to Big Government dot com and author of "A New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending, and More Taxes".
  • Topics:
    • Has Obama just become a Herbert Hoover Republican?
    • The upcoming State of the Union address. Is cash for Geezers now getting some support in Congress?
    • Will the real tea partiers please stand up?!
  • Bumper Music:
  • Today's newsletter has details of today's guests and links to the major stories and alerts that Thom covered in the show, plus lots more. If you haven't signed up for the free newsletter yet, please do. If you missed today's newsletter, it is in the archive.
  • Quote: "We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt.
  • Quote: "The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace, and conspire against it in times of adversity. The banking powers are more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. They denounce as public enemies, all who question their methods or throw light upon their crimes." - Abraham Lincoln.
  • Clip:

    "Yes, we may have to cut some spending, although I disagree with Sen. McCain about an across-the- board freeze.

    That's an example of an unfair burden sharing."

    Barack Obama, second McCain, Obama debate.

  • Clip:

    "But he wants to raise taxes. My friends, the last president to raise taxes during tough economic times was Herbert Hoover, and he practiced protectionism as well, which I'm sure we'll get to at some point.

    You know, last year up to this time, we've lost 700,000 jobs in America. The only bright spot is that over 300,000 jobs have been created by small businesses. Sen. Obama's secret that you don't know is that his tax increases will increase taxes on 50 percent of small business revenue.

    Small businesses across America will have to cut jobs and will have their taxes increase and won't be able to hire because of Sen. Obama's tax policies. You know, he said some time ago, he said he would forgo his tax increases if the economy was bad.

    I've got some news, Sen. Obama, the news is bad. So let's not raise anybody's taxes, my friends, and make it be very clear to you I am not in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy. I am in favor of leaving the tax rates alone and reducing the tax burden on middle-income Americans by doubling your tax exemption for every child from $3,500 to $7,000.

    To giving every American a $5,000 refundable tax credit and go out and get the health insurance you want rather than mandates and fines for small businesses, as Sen. Obama's plan calls for. And let's create jobs and let's get our economy going again. And let's not raise anybody's taxes. "

    John McCain, second McCain, Obama debate.

  • Email:

    "I have spent much of my career fighting against wasteful spending in Washington. I'm not afraid to speak out when I see taxpayer dollars wasted. And in all my years in public office, I have never seen spending as out of control as it is under the current Democratic leadership.

    Our national debt has reached an all-time high of $12.4 trillion dollars as a result of the astonishing expansion of big government under President Obama. And now, Congressional Democrats want to raise our national debt ceiling by an additional $1.9 trillion. This is unconscionable.

    If Democrats are successful in raising the debt ceiling, our country will have a budget deficit of nearly $14.3 trillion! It's outrageous and frightening to think of passing on such a staggering amount of debt to our children and grandchildren.

    Today, I want to know what you think. Do you support the Democrats' legislation to raise the debt ceiling? We've put together a special poll for you to speak out on this issue and you can register your opinion by following this link.

    It seems nearly every single elected Democrat has ignored the public's disapproval for their out of control spending. They are out-of-touch with every day American values and each national poll shows a majority of Americans agree with us."

    John McCain.

  • Article: The Supreme Court Takes Over. Excerpt from Chapter 5 of Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and Theft of Human Rights" by Thom Hartmann.

    "But the states, as Charles and Mary Beard write in The Rise of American Civilization, “had to reckon with the Federalist interpretation of the Constitution by John Marshall, who, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1801 to 1835, never failed to exalt the [pro-business] doctrines of Hamilton above the claims of the states.”

    Marshall, appointed to the Court by Federalist John Adams (who had appointed—for life—only Federalists to all federal judgeships), was what would today be called a judicial activist. As the Beards wrote, “By historic irony, he [Marshall] administered the oath of office to his bitterest enemy, Thomas Jefferson; and for a quarter of a century after the author of the Declaration of Independence retired to private life, the stern Chief Justice continued to announce old Federalist rulings from the Supreme Bench.”

    In 1803, during the second year of Jefferson’s presidency, Marshall took on a power for himself and future Supreme Courts, which made President Jefferson apoplectic. In the Marbury v. Madison case, as the Beards relate it, “Marshall had been in his high post only two years when he laid down for the first time in the name of the entire Court the doctrine that the judges have the power to declare an act of Congress null and void when in their opinion it violates the Constitution. This power was not expressly conferred on the Court [by the Constitution]. Though many able men had held that the judicial branch of the government enjoyed it, the principle was not positively established until 1803 [by Marshall’s ruling in this case]...”

    Jefferson, shocked, bluntly expressed his concern to his old friend Judge Spencer Roane, the son-in-law of Patrick Henry and a Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court. “If this opinion be sound,” Jefferson wrote, “then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se [legally, a suicide]. For intending to establish three departments, co-ordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone, the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one too, which is unelected by, and independent of the nation...."

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