Daily Topics - Tuesday - June 8th 2010
By louisehartmann
Quote: It is up to us to live up to the legacy that was left for us, and to leave a legacy that is worthy of our children and of future generations -- Christine Gregoire, Gov. of Washington
Hour One - Is health care reform beginning and will it satisfy progessives? Ron Pollock Executive Director, Families USA www.familiesusa.org
Guest: Why we're falling into a double dip recession? Robert Reich http://robertreich.org
Plus...Will Goldman Sachs return the $13billion? Cenk Uygar The Young Turks Radio Program www.theyoungturks.com
Hour Two - Can disaster be a catalyst for change? Explorer Jean Michel Cousteau www.oceanfutures.org
Hour Three - Is the BP disaster mean the end of greed or the end of the planet?
Plus...What are the secrets still being about RFK's assassination? Lamar Waldron www.legacyofsecrecy.com
Comments
#2
Cheney's push of deregulators led to BP disaster
Wilkerson on Cheney Pt2: Cheney's support for pro-industry "regulators" maybe his main damage to America
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=74&jumival=567
#3
Re: Does the BP disaster mean the end of greed?
Na, people have very short memories.
#4
Does the PB disaster mean the end of memory?
I forget.
#5
1. Set up a detour or structure with acoustics to route wildlife away from the Gulf
2. Set up search and rescue teams to get wildlife out of the area and to safety- fish could be netted and re-located
3. Let James Cameron and his equipment in
4. Get Kevin Costner’s separators in
5. Hold international panels
6. Bring in other teams, make everything having to do with the disaster public.
7. Develop a better blog for everyone to join in with their ideas, and not BP’s pacification hotline.
8. Use BIOGREEN CLEAN instead of DAWN by Proctor & Gamble that performs animal testing and harmful chemicals.
9. Do a full scale surveillance of all the drilling rigs.
10. Allow the foreign countries to help as they have offered with skimmers, technology, intellectual contributions
11. Allow the media more access, what is with the no fly zone.
12. Every single time a platform is set up with a drill, booms and mechanical skimmers should be hired to sit and be there, just like cruise liners have life boats
#6
If we can't make a push for implementation of alternative energy generation now, when will we (if) ever do it?
N
#7
If you're not depressed already, did you see the article Sunday or yesterday about the 10 cannisters of hazardous gas caught in a net in New York? One cannister leaked, sickening the crew. I think evetually we will learn that illegal dumping is the rule, not the exception.
#8
I am having a running debate with a poster at TPM and require whatever insight you good folk can provide:
My assertion is that although Senator Reid appears to be a good Senator for his state and maintains a fairly progressive voting record, that he is either:
A. Spineless,
B. Spectacularly crappy (inept) at his day job, OR
C. Simply criminally negligent and enacting intentional malfeasance.
Presently, I am going with “B” but FreeRider thinks that:
“Dude, STFU with your whining bullshit. F**k you tweezer-dicks who dismiss everything accomplished as not good enough. Just f**k off you worthless pile.”
Am I being unreasonable? Am I incorrect in my reasoning? Do I owe FreeRider an apoligy? Please let me know . . .
#9
Dear Mysterious Floating Head: 1. No. 2. No.3. No.
#10
rladof
Re: Am I being unreasonable? Am I incorrect in my reasoning? Do I owe FreeRider an apoligy?
It just goes to show that there are blind fanatics on both the left and the right. FreeRider apparently believes that by shouting & name calling he/she wins the debate.
Giving Harry the benefit of doubt, I too would go with B ;)
#11
rladof, what you got from FreeRider is the general conservative response you get when you make a point about something that they can't refute with facts. Just get loud and angry and you don't have to worry about knowing what you're talking about.
IMO, you're right about Harry Reid. May be good for his state, but ridiculously inept as Senate Majority Leader.
#12
@rladlof, let the poster know that by the way he expresses himself, its obvious that deep in his Democratic heart lurks an oppressive little fascist wanting everyone to march in goosestep formation. That taking one step forward, then two steps backward doesn't count as an accomplishment. And that those who are quick to cast dispersions on anothers genitalia are just expressing what they themselves are most insecure about.
N
#13
Re: what you got from FreeRider is the general conservative response
Except that FreeRider appears not to be a conservative. There are fanatics on both sides of the fence.
#14
@harry, was that no on 1, or... a... bomb Russia?
N
#15
Re: And that those who are quick to cast dispersions on anothers genitalia are just expressing what they themselves are most insecure about.
Very Good!
#16
Robert Greenwald | Video: Afghanistan Passes Vietnam
Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films
On Monday, June 7, 2010, the Afghanistan War completed its 104th month, replacing Vietnam as the longest war in US history.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/55-55/2148-video-afghanistan-passes-vietnam
Out of sight, out of mind...
#17
Dear Maxrot re: #14 "Am I being unreasonable? "No. "Am I incorrect in my reasoning?" No." Do I owe FreeRider an apoligy?" No. sorry i was not clear.
#18
@DRichards, my wife and I chuckle at guys we see driving oversized pickup trucks or SUV's, the bigger the vehicle the more insecure the driver.
N
#19
The bigger the font...the smaller the stylus. :D
#20
**Reflection of the Week** "We have all been given eyes to see. We simply need to choose to live with vision."-- Judy Cannato
#21
@harry, re #17 ref of #14, you just missed my very obscure reference to a Bukaroo Banzai movie quote, nothing else. Don't think to hard on my comments, sometimes I'm just in my own little world.
N
#22
maxrot, I didnt see Buckaroo Bonzai. I only like fiction..
#23
President Barack Obomber- woop ass kick ya! Hi Yah!
#24
Two things have occured to me recently about this oil gusher:
This is the Earth's 9/11 but the Goverment and most of the media are reacting like it is a "no fault" car accident.
Dick Cheny pullged the trigger, it just took 10 years for the Bullet to hit!
#25
Want Clean Energy Economy? Call every Californian you know and make sure they are voting for Proposition 15 Clean 'Fair' Elections Act
Proponents of Proposition 15 point out the main reason for this wide gulch between what the public wants and what the public gets in the solar and other sectors of society, is that big moneyed corporations pay lobbyists to walk the halls of elected representatives, monopolize their schedules, and influence, and even assist in writing legislative hurdles for their clean energy competitors.
Moreover, given the most recent Citizen’s United v FCC Supreme Court 2010 Ruling, corporations are now persons and therefore have more than the same free speech rights as natural persons. Now there will be no limit on how much money fossil fuel and nuclear industries will be able to spend to drown out the voices of renewable energy advocates agrees Hartmann, taking the call of Craig Dunkerley from the California Fair Elections Act on the daily Thom Hartmann Show aired in San Francisco on Green960, AM960 on the radio dial. This is consistent with what Hartmann writes in his newly updated to be released from San Francisco Publisher Berrett-Koehler, Unequal Protection, 2010.
The article continues here-
#26
@newtrev, I agree, I just wonder if you realize like I do, Cheney was sitting behind a machine gun when he pulled the trigger.
N
#27
Dear VoteVets.org Supporter,
We knew it was coming and now we have a chance to stop it dead in its tracks. Soon, the Senate will vote on Senator Lisa Murkowski's Dirty Air Act -- a measure that will prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
Call your senators and tell them to vote "NO" on Senator Murkowski's Big Oil Bailout known as the Dirty Air Act?
Why does this matter to us? Well, written by polluter lobbyists, this Dirty Air Act is nothing more than a "Big Oil Bailout" for Senator Murkowski's energy industry allies.
It's their way of escaping the rules and regulations that are critical to moving us towards a Clean Energy economy - an economy less dependent on oil, much of which we buy from regimes that support our enemies, and terrorism.
Make no mistake - Iraq and Afghanistan veterans want a Clean Energy economy. In a poll conducted of mostly Republican veterans, nearly 80 percent of them said our addition to oil threatened our security, and about three-quarters of them wanted to pass the Clean Energy bill, right now.
Your help is urgently needed to stop it. The vote will be close. Our efforts will be pivotal. Your voice needs to be heard.
Call your senators and tell them to vote "NO" on Senator Murkowski's Big Oil Bailout?
In the wake of the worst oil spill in U.S. history, and with oil money continuing to flow to those who would do us harm every day, the nation wants more accountability - not less.
Sincerely,
Jon Soltz
Iraq War Veteran
Chairman, VoteVets.org
#28
Planetary Grief.
Written in my writing group 5/31/2010. It's an expression of grief for our planet, which I have felt since I was a small child and first noticed how much of our mother earth we have covered with asphalt. "How can she breathe?" I wondered. This bit of creative writing is in direct response to the BP OIL DISASTER.
He splashed her singing in the sunshine as she planted her flowers, weaving some of the blossoms into a headdress where they wiggled as she moved in the breeze, mesmerizing, fascinating. He was water; she was earth, multiplying and rooting seeds within her rocky, but friendly breast. She was a beautiful planet, a world unto herself, gliding through her path in her place in the starlit universe. She was draped in blue, white, green and brown, innocent and unbroken. If only she could have stayed that way, listening to the music of the spheres, praising from the heart of her a never ending song.
“Enumerate my children,” she cried. “So many you have never seen, shaped to infinite size both large and small, all, all of you my children. Each giving way to the next in the dance of creation. And now you, my human children have wounded me in my side, poisoning my lover water and killing my sea children and bird children and soon, soon even yourselves IN YOUR RUSH TO BE THE FIRST OF MY CHILDREN TO CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSE THE HOUR OF YOUR OWN DEPARTURE. You will leave me riven and macerated; what will be left of me when you are gone? I, I who have given you all I had in the miracle of my own creation and placement in this amazing universe.”
Susy Crandall, Albuquerque, NM
#29
@Gerald, re:#20 -
With all due respect to Ms. Cannato, I think Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia expressed the same thought more succinctly -
"Trouble with you
Is the trouble with me
Got 2 good eyes
But we still don't see"
#30
Lament for a Dying Planet
I guess that's what I could call it. susyc
#31
Susy,
Kudos on being in a writing group. Are you interested in writing for some online publications for at least some nominal income? Let me know if you are and I can post some places for you to submit some writing samples too. I have just begin this and it is a great way to extend our wishes for a new world.
#32
re#24: The bullet may have just hit us, but it hit Nigeria and other countries back then.
#33
Did you know it was World Ocean Day today?
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/reference_files/worldoceansday.htm
#34
@Maxrot:
Perhaps I should have said "Cheney pushed the the big red button but it took 10 years for the first peice of "nukular" schrapnal to hit us"
#35
@suzyc, re:#'s 28 & 30 - As George Carlin pointed out several years ago, regardless of what horrors we may perpetrate upon her, sooner or later (on a geological time scale), Mother Earth will be JUST FINE. All this "save the planet" stuff is a buncha crap ... what we're really saying, when we say that is "Save the People!", cuz it's them (and the rest of the animal kingdom) who we're REALLY doing damage to.
#36
@mstaggerlee, I believe in this quote by Ms Cannato vision deals with ideas for the present and the future. If we want to move forward for a better world, we will need ideas to be inclusive for the world population to benefit in God's gifts that He has given to us. His gifts must not benefit the few who are well healed with money and possessions.
#37
The only way we can ensure that BP pay's the adequate price, is to transform our energy resources from fossil to renewable. Plain and simple.
N
#38
Thanks guys and gals. I realized that I was becoming border-line snotty and just wanted to make sure that I was not being a total asshat . . . My actual response to FreeRider's post was:
"Are you Senator Harry Reid? I could understand the levels of anger you expressing if you were being called out on your personal piss-poor performance and could not face your personal ineffective career . . . If you are not Senator Reid, I suggest you consider spending time with an anger management specialist.
Back to point: Who is whining? I am flat-out stating that while Senator Reid appears to be a good Senator, he is spectacularly bad at being Majority Leader. I stand on the facts and I am NOT sorry if the truth offends you.
Seriously, I conceded the student loan thingy and retracted the spineless comment. It is not my fault that once spineless is taken off the table, we are left debating whether Senator Reid is spectacularly crappy at his day job or simply criminally negligent. I willingly give Senator Reid the benefit of the doubt and fiat the decision that his ineptness is not intentional malfeasance.
At this point I find myself having to apologize for appearing contrarian but . . . While you, personally, may have little use for someone willing to express fact-based truth to you, I am not worthless to my family and I act in a responsible manner to support them. Additionally, as for your attempted slur labeling me being a “tweezers-dick”, I need to let you know that I am more of a pencil-prick.
BTW you never answered my question: Should I run for office?
#39
Dewey, Cheetum and Howe, was used back in the 30's with the 3 Stooges, and I have no doubt that it has roots in Vaudeville.
N
#40
I understand what you are saying and have heard it too. But I don't underestimate our human ability to find a way to waste this planet altogether or at least the lovely concatenation of serendipity that allowed life to develop here. Truth to tell, she may be better off without us.
#41
rladlof
Good response.
#42
RE; RFK killing; recently-released audio recordings show 14 shots from at least 2 guns were fired, 6 more bullets than Sirhan's gun held. Also, re: the .22 caliber pistol Thane Cesar claimed he sold before the shooting, he actually sold it months after the shooting.
#43
Thom - I received a flyer in the mail yesterday titled “Vote Democratic” sent out by The Team for Democratic Voters. It’s promoted as a guide to take with you to the polls. It looks like it’s from an official Democratic organization, all the office holders are correct. The problem is the flyer endorses ballot positions opposite of what progressives support. Any chance you can alert California voters about this deception.
#44
The new exploits of Representative Marcia Fudge (D-OH) may bear watching. . . http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/nothing-to-see-here-supporters-of-plan-to-limit-ethics-panel-lay-low.php
#45
I just went on Google Earth to see how far Key Largo is from the Deep Horizon site. Google Earth actually has a decent multi-layer overlay map, and there are some nice links to videos and so forth on the map. I wouldn't take everything on there as gospel, but it worth taking a look at.
N
#46
Continuing sadness in the land of AG the AG: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/gonzo_asking_for_donations_to_cover_legal_bills_st.php
#47
@rladlof, So Gonzo is having problems getting publishers interested in his book. I'm sure they expect nothing but poorly written fiction from him, so I guess he's S.O.L. Too Bad, So Sad.
N
#48
Shardenfreude . . . Is it wrong of me to celebrate Gonzo’s apparent misfortune? If he had only did his job instead of being a toady . . .
#49
I thought it was his job to be a toady. I'm quite sure if you looked at his resume, under the heading US Attorney General, you'll see his details for it is toady for the Administration.
Of course I could be wrong, perhaps he used another term, like boot-lick or enabler.
N
#50
The earth is my mother and yours. The kindly God who fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight--that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything that a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. There will be no divine help for the oil gushing out. "I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose" Clarence Darrow.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
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Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
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Mueller's favorite place to pray (written about in "Prophet's Way"), and the roof of the room where the Last Supper is reputed to have happened.
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Paul Jay: In Defense of Helen Thomas -- On Apologizing to Apologisthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-jay/in-defense-of-helen-thoma_b_602972.html