Daily Topics - Friday July 9th 2010
By shawnt56
Quote of the Day: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” - Frederic Bastiat - (1801-1850) in Economic Sophisms
Anything Goes on Townhall Friday!!
Hour One: How have the greedy banksters and Republicans caused the biggest market decline in the last 300 years and how do we stop it?! Market forecaster Robert Prechter of Elliott Wave International will be here www.elliottwave.com
Hour Three: South of the Border - Academy Award winning film director/screenwriter Oliver Stone talks to Thom about his new movie http://southoftheborderdoc.com
Comments
#2
hey, ya'll! here's a 4 minute clip of me and my great big beautiful mule Jezebel riding around in west Texas. I'm in the group of 3 riders. Jezebel is the big dark brown mule. Here's the times we're on camera:
@00:07, Jezebel at far left, my trainer Paul on his mule center.
@00:27, Me and Jezebel closest to camera.
@00:58,Me and Jezebel on left
@1:00 Me and jezebel riding in background
@1:06 Me and Jezebel in the middle
@1:09 me on porch at right rear with hand on post.
@3:42Paul and his mule in center, Me on Jezebel on the right.Here's the link: http://weareaustin.com/austinlive-story/?nxd_id=74565
#3
www.pahrumplife.org writes:
Heads UP
Life on Earth depends upon:
The Earth
Fresh Air
Fresh Water
Natural Organic Earth-Spawned Foods
Sunshine
Seasons
Diversity
Comfort
Laughter
Reproduction
Work should be so abundantly close that humans would be able to do it from home or ride a bike or walk to work. And Public Transportation should be a given. The sun, wind or center of the Earth should power public and private transportation. Humans should be able to grow gardens.
The Earth has suffered much and is yet suffering from the insidious cancer Greed.
And Greed has its way by creating misery.
Greed makes people’s lives miserable by creating poverty, no job, no fishing, no hunting, no land to grow a garden or raise domestic animals, no picking fruits or nuts in the national forests. Interestingly Arizona has “decorative (non-edible) oranges” to beautify its boulevard dividers. Greed gets air and water deregulated so that it can do anything it wants to these life forces and does. Greed gets the abject poor hooked on drugs so they can escape their sad lives over and over again and promises big bucks and no more financial worries if they get involved in drug sales. Greed makes certain drugs expensive and illegal (not major greed’s preferred drug, alcohol) so that the miserable illegal drug-addicted masses can be arrested and put into prisons that put these miserably tricked souls to work for less than minimum wage in order to get out of prison sooner. Greed smuggles or rather has drugs smuggled into the prisons so that all addicted prisoners can again escape their miserable lives. Greed lengthens their sentences when it catches them disobeying prison rules. If you are a private prison your greed, by skimping on food and medical supplies, can incite riots to lengthen sentences for more free labor and more per diem space charges. If you think they get hefty fines for thus being greedy, realize that to them the fines they pay in their lawsuits and settlements are like a few pennies to the common folk.
In January 2006 the President of the United States declared in his State of the Union Address: "Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil…….” If crude oil was a controlled substance perhaps the right people including their government enablers would be rounded up and put in prison. Although with the right laws things could and should change. The way things are now in white collar prisons they’d probably get to have what they depend on, tennis and ping pong, drinks by the pool, free Coca Cola, and soda crackers, golf, gourmet meals and parties; but at least they’d be where we can see them to monitor their actions behind bars. These guys just don’t seem to care about what All Life depends on, do they?
Humans need to be greedy for kindness and being kind and for the natural life where sickness, toil and trouble are rare.
In yesterday’s Yahoo News read the following URL to see what the corporatocracy has in mind and in action now, another way to add to the already high rate – higher than any other country’s - prison population of America with more destitute racially judged masses. And this hateful crime is always rationalized by and exists in the name of American Patriotism and paid for by the taxpayers. Ask yourself what the following article will accomplish and for whom? For crime you can look down or you can look up. http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/3538344
#5
We suffer a serious disease in America.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Capitalism-is-an-Anti-Soci-by-Dave-Lindorff-100709-24.html
#6
What's going on in the Gulf!?!?!? Its being poisoned, the only question is will it be fatal or just cause planetary sickness?
N
#7
@Gerald The situation that we're in is not so much due to Republican tax cutting as it is to the tactic that Republicans adopted over 30 years ago:infiltrate school boards and dumb down the population. It seems to have worked. Nobody knows where their food comes from. Nobody has a clue to the most elemental economic lessons. Nobody is interested in how a society functions. All boring stuff - hey, what's that bright shiny thing over there?
#8
The country should build a huge fence on its southern border!
The country of course being Canada, which needs to brace itself for a wave of undocumented workers from the United States:
Stubbornly high unemployment rates got you down? Not sold on the economic recovery? Look no further than America's polite neighbor to the north, where jobs numbers are surging and home prices have been rising steadily for nearly a year.
Last month, Canada, a nation with roughly one tenth of our population, created about 10,000 more new jobs than America.
This story is obviously in error -- any country with socialized medicine and with "big government" regulations on mortgages and the financial sector could never create so many jobs.
#9
In my life I've known three people who wanted to be a cop. One wanted to do it because his dad was a cop, another wanted to do it because he was noble minded and wanted to do the right thing, and the last wanted to do it because he wanted to have the power, he was enamored of being able to openly carry a gun.
I don't know how the real numbers shake out, but the mentality of the one does more to destroy the image of the police then all the good intentions of the other two.
N
#10
You know what, I'm ready to join the "CUT TAXES" band wagon, however my caveat to it is this "RAISE TARIFFS". For every dollar you cut in taxes raise two with tariffs. I think the will screw up their two Santa Claus BS.
RAISE TARIFFS, and then you can CUT TAXES (maybe) ;-)
N
#11
Maxrot
Re: Cops
Are candidates for the position given any type of personality test to weed out the ones that will get drunk with power?
#12
@DRichards, actually, its my understanding that there is. The one guy I mentioned that wanted to carry a gun openly, was having a tough time passing the psychological test for the cities/counties he applied at. However, that's not to say he didn't go to some other city/county and try to pass the psych test there keeping in mind what might have caused him to fail the other test. In other words, as far as I know, there are obstacles, but clever people always can figure out how to overcome them. I was only associated with this fellow for a short time, he was fired from the job for stealing. I don't know what happened with him. In fact I don't know if any of the people I mentioned went on to acheive their dreams, (for different reasons). But of course that wasn't the point I was trying to make, I was just saying that the minority caused a negative conotation that for all practical purposes over rode the majority.
As the old joke goes, one "Aw-shit!" removes all prior "Atta-boys".
N
#13
D Richards re #8: yeah! we're so lucky to have Canada as a neighbor. There are 2 sayings in Mexico re: USA: " Whenever the US gets a cold, Mexico gets cancer". and: " Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States." (notice they don't call us "America", 'cause they're America, too.)
re: #11: How cops behave depends on the quality of their supervision. If they know they can't get away with abusing suspects, only the sociopaths will do it.
#15
@Thom, perhaps the cats kill birds in preparation for the coming war with the planet Xenu. They know that if they take out enough of the spies, well have a fighting chance. ;-)
N
#16
Strengthening Social Security
A good way to strengthen Social Security- to decrease the projected future shortfall in Social Security funds- would be to tax different types of income for Social Security, instead of only taxing regular income for Social Security, as the current system does.
Currently, employees pay 6.2 % of their regular income into Social Security and their employers pay a matching 6.2 %. Self-employed people pay the full amount, 12.4 % into Social Security. Income over the cap limit ($106,800 in 2009) is not taxed for Social Security. Incomes from capital gains, dividends, interest, gifts, and inheritances are not currently taxed for Social Security.
Taxing these other types of income for Social Security would strengthen the Social Security system and would substantially improve the projected outlook. Moving toward taxing different types of income the same as regular income would also make the market place freer. More even taxation of different types of income would more allow free markets to work, instead of the market place being distorted by the federal government giving tax advantages to certain types of income over regular income.
Adjustments in Social Security benefits should also be considered. One adjustment could be to keep the ratio of working years to retirement years about the same as it is now. So if people continue to live longer, the age to receive benefits could be raised. Another adjustment could be to link increases in benefits more closely with inflation of basic needs of seniors and less of a link to wage inflation.
Medicare could also be strengthened. Taxing incomes from capital gains, dividends, interest, gifts, and inheritances for Social Security and Medicare would make the Social Security and Medicare systems stronger and the United States’ economy freer.
#17
@Gene Savory, what you are writing are key reasons why the Republicans will never go away and with their money power they will remain a powerful force against a better America.
#18
I shared with you an article titled, "Portrait of a Son." God, the Father, gave to us His Son, Jesus. His Son's portrait was given to us through His words in the New Testament. We could buy His portrait and have everything in eternity or we could reject His portrait. Acceptance of the Golden Rule is accepting Jesus' portrait.
#19
Dear President Obama:
Please do the Democratic Party a favor and not seek re-election in 2012!!!
Sincerely, Gerald, a Jesus liberal, a pacifist, and a progressive
#20
@Gene Savory, with the loss of the middle class most Americans must beg for food and even some low paying slave wages. Most Americans do not have the luxury of marching. Our only hope is the ballot box but with rigged electronic voting machines most of our votes will never be counted. The GOP did not rig the vote in 2008 because they knew Obama would fail as president. People with the gold make the rules.
#21
To the parents of our dead and maimed soldiers:
Please forgive me for voting for Obama because he is worse than Bush II. I made a dreadful mistake. The United States of Hell will be at war for generations. Our manifest destiny is to kill off God's children. I promise you that I will NOT vote for Obama in 2012.
#22
Hillary lies. She would probably be worse than Bush II and Obama together.
#23
Here are Hillary's latest lies.
http://original.antiwar.com/roberts/2010/07/09/hillary-clintons-latest-lies/
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Images of Thom
From The Thom Hartmann Reader:
"Thom Hartmann seeks out interesting subjects from such disparate outposts of curiosity that you have to wonder whether or not he uncovered them or they selected him."
From The Thom Hartmann Reader:
"In an age rife with media-inspired confusion and political cowardice, we yearn for a decent, caring, deeply human soul whose grasp of the problems confronting us provides a light by which we can make our way through the quagmire of lies, distortions, pandering, and hollow self-puffery that strips the American Dream of its promise. How lucky we are, then, to have access to the wit, wisdom, and willingness of Thom Hartmann, who shares with us here that very light, grown out of his own life experience."
From Screwed:
"Thom Hartmann’s book explains in simple language and with concrete research the details of the Neo-con’s war against the American middle class. It proves what many have intuited and serves to remind us that without a healthy, employed, and vital middle class, America is no more than the richest Third World country on the planet."
The 1956 Republicans
Wolfson and Alexander were subbing for Thom. They shared parts of the GOP 1956 platform to re-elect Ike. The GOP in 1956 was progressive humanitarians. Today, they are murderers and war criminals and they spew thoughts that humanitarians are terrorists. Thom Hartmann is on file as a humanitarian terrorist. On Thom’s show there was some talk about names being added to the no-fly list. Was Thom off on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 and Thursday, July 8, 2010 to confer with his lawyer on how to remove his name from the no-fly list? In 1956 the Republicans were progressive humanitarians and today the Republicans are murderers and war criminals.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/mariner/20100707.html
Liz Cheney is absolutely right about American exceptionality. Yes, Americans are exceptionally stupid, exceptional murderers and war criminals, exceptionally corrupt, exceptionally hateful, exceptional liars, etc. Yes, Americans are exceptionally very transparent.
The Supreme Court Mafia has shattered the Golden Rule and Sacramental Moments. Whoever does good deeds with foreigners are considered humanitarian terrorists. The Supreme Court is spreading their hatred across the United States of Hell and to all the corners of our world. Numb Nuts, aka Americans, have continually broken the Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth Commandments. Numb Nuts live in perpetual mortal sin that will eternally damn their souls.
We have different rules and laws for different people. Our teenagers are into fairness and idealism. These emotions are not just for them but for family, friends, and neighbors. What kind of message are we sending them as our courts free murdering cops? The teenage years are developmental years and these years should experience fairness and idealism. They will grow up soon enough and join the real and unfair world we live in. It is important that at this stage in their life they experience hope and ideas for a better world. Our Numb Nut nation is destroying our youth.