Daily Topics - Monday February 20th, 2012
By shawnt56
"Please join us Tuesday evening Feburary 21st as we present a very special edition of The Big Picture "Teach-In to Take Back the American Dream" sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future and Free Speech TV. Guests include: Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Robert Borosage w/Campaign for America's Future, "Patriotic Millionaire" Leo Hindery of Intermedia Partners, Heather McGhee of Demos, and Natalie Foster from Rebuild the Dream. Check your local listings...9pm ET and 11pm ET on FSTV and RT.
Hour Two: Oil prices skyrocket...the speculators are back - Ronald Bailey, Reason Magazine
Hour Three: Private prisons...disastrous for inmates & the public? Caroline Isaacs, American Friends Service Committee
Comments
#2
Has Ronald Bailey not heard of short selling? He asked how someone could make money on a falling market.
#3
Regarding the caller Gordon's idea about increasing the number of Congressional representatives, I've been trying to find out what the actual capacity of the House chamber, both with and without the gallery, but have been unable to find a number, or even a diagram of the chair arrangement. The House website has nothing.
The reason I'm looking is that I too have an idea about increasing the size of the House, but by giving each district 5 votes in the House and giving them out proportionately to the candidates in the same way that seats are given to parties in countries with proportional representation systems of electing legislators. I expect under those circumstances that there would be 2.5 to 3 representatives per district, so if we stayed at 435 districts, there would be around 1000-1400 members in total. But if we went back to the ratio given in the Constitution, which was an average of 5 districts per state, we'd have 250 districts, for a total of 1250 votes, and around 625-750 members in the House.
#4
If I were confined in a private prison, I'd ask my lawyer to charge that prison company with kidnapping. Only the government is allowed to restrict my liberty.
#5
Saphrostomously ugly? I'm completely stumped. Apparently there's nothing like that word anywhere on the Internet. I even tried an initial silent p.
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.
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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 Unequal Protection, 2nd Edition:
"Beneath the success and rise of American enterprise is an untold history that is antithetical to every value Americans hold dear. This is a seminal work, a godsend really, a clear message to every citizen about the need to reform our country, laws, and companies."
From The Thom Hartmann Reader:
"Through compelling personal stories, Hartmann presents a dramatic and deeply disturbing picture of humans as a profoundly troubled species. Hope lies in his inspiring vision of our enormous unrealized potential and his description of the path to its realization."
The other aspect that makes me want to keep the Electoral College, as much as I would like to tweak it, is that it keeps any state from attaining an undue influence by inflating its vote totals.