More proof for Thom's idea for stable societies, the matriarchal system; "The ones who made the decisions for the community were the grandmothers. There were societies of grandmothers. Colonizing has forced people to forget these ways. There are still some of us who were taught the old way. I learned from my grandmother. Other people didn't have that opportunity." White Face, a Lakota elder and great-grandmother of nine

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/15870-going-extinct-is-genocide-lakota-elders-tour-to-raise-awareness-about-struggle

So, now that it is very apparent that the Republicans are not going to "play ball" isn't it about time for all of the Democrats to reverse the damage they have done...damage they have done by giving in to the Republicans? If they can make laws that taketh away they can make laws that restore what they tooketh away.

I believe that most of the country now realizes (if they don't they are pretty stupid and ignorant) that the Republicans will always represent the wealthy to the extent that they will commit treason against the majority of Americans who are not so wealthy. The Democrats have to be kept in line as well because many of them are sell-outs, also.

So, if all of the Democrats, including Obama, don't reverse all of the damage they have done, after realizing that the Republicans just will not compromise, then they are no better than the Republicans. And all of their rhetoric is total BS.

These two parties work for the same wealthy people...they are just messing with our heads in trying to blame the other party while, in the end, gaining ground for the wealthy while losing it for the rest of us.

The goal of the Democrats, it seems, is not to really compromise, but to blame the Republicans for not compromising which, after all of the name calling and blaming the other side, results in getting just what the wealthy ruling elite want in the first place. Smoke and mirrors! An illusion of democracy but a reality of plutocracy!

It is like a snake swallowing it's prey. The snake's teeth and jaws are a mechanism for drawing the prey into the snake's mouth and down it's throat and never the reverse. I'd say the lower teeth and jaw are like the Republicans and the upper teeth are the Democrats. And they are swallowing us whole...slowly...but surely!

It is time to increase our resolve to defeate as many of these empathy dead Republican congressmen in the up coming elections.work hard tell your friends compain tell your story Too many in the DOP have closed minds

"Listening to reason" is not a republican characteristic. They shut out even hearing facts and opinions that don't fit their world view. I believe they literally do not hear different opinions. The research on this shows that listening to facts doesn't change people's minds.

The Big Brain project can't move ahead soon enoough. I'd really like to know what makes some people, repubs and dems, impervious to information, facts, and the consequences of doing, or not doing, something.

I was recommended here by a liberal friend of which I have many. I'm a conservative conservationist that finds nothing conservative about Dems or Reps putting our environment, economy, or liberties up for sale for the highest bidders, domestic or foreign. That getting off oil, period, domestic or foreign, should be the eventual goal, I have recycled long before it became convenient, and, yet fear government is being bought and sold at an ever increasing rate on both sides of the proverbial aisle. I was told I would find discussion here with an open mind to common sense solutions and that Thom Hartmann would deliver that view. Anyone here should know what I have found, yet I knew when I heard it from my friend, because he was unwittingly spouting the same party line; biased misinformation he was intentionally given here. If we don't start looking for and finding some common ground, instead of being led, shamed, or coerced into corners by special interests and politicians, then we may find out how lucky or unlucky we are to be Americans. Those in a hurry to experience this can leave while it is still a free country. The powers that be are well on their way with the lowest home ownership since the founding of the Community Re-Investment act of 1977. The "actual" unemployment rate exceeding that of the Carter administration and the guys on capital hill, since that time, having contributed to more middle class jobs being sent overseas than we can count. And all we do on so many of these sites is call names and try to sound like we have a real idea of what's happening. Is not hard to recognize spin on both sides of any discussion. It's in the message here and everywhere I look, except maybe Ron Paul. Good luck to you guys.

When Clinton was first elected president, they did the same thing. Not the first republican voted for his budget and told him that he was going to tank the economy. Clinton, to his credit, didn't negotiate with the economic terrorist and didn't offer to cut social security or medicare. In fact, he even raised taxes.Now the Clinton economy is in the history books and the Bush recession is there as well.That should tell you something.
Check out this book: http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000618495/Nephilim.aspx

Jeff

A total of $2.5 trillion in spending cuts already and then the Democrats offer up cuts to worker funded social programs, fully funded ones at that. I think this is indicative of just how far to the right the Billionaire-bagger Party has yanked our Democratic leaders. Instead of $2.5 trillion in cuts there should have been a return to pre-Reagan tax rates and $2.5 trillion in additional spending on things like infrastructure. We'd be out of this damn Republican depression and their austerity bull would never have taken hold. But noooooo, the Democrats have to play the role of the meek child always cowering in a defensive posture while right wing idiots eat their lunch.

Palindromedary wrote ~ "I believe that most of the country now realizes (if they don't they are pretty stupid and ignorant) that the Republicans will always represent the wealthy to the extent that they will commit treason against the majority of Americans who are not so wealthy. "

"Pretty stupid and ignorant." Maybe. Your educational tax dollars and dumbing down media at work. But honestly, I think the American people are smarter than you may think. They're just really busy. Wasting their energy busting ass for boss man, some working two jobs just to make ends meet. Many are in debt over their heads and the majority have families to worry about. Most don't have time to read anything; and, many are coping with their situation with self medication. The controlling powers in this country have done quite a good job at taming and controlling the public.

Palindromedary also wrote ~ "It is like a snake swallowing its prey. The snake's teeth and jaws are a mechanism for drawing the prey into the snake's mouth and down it's throat and never the reverse. I'd say the lower teeth and jaw are like the Republicans and the upper teeth are the Democrats. And they are swallowing us whole...slowly...but surely!"

Interesting analogy, indeed--especially coming from a confirmed Atheist. I suppose you are aware that a snake is the metaphor used to describe Satan all over the Bible. Sorry! Let's not open that can of worms again. LOL

Slightly off topic, I closely scrutinized that paper from the Chemical Physical Journal about super thermite in the dust at the WTC. Quite frankly, it boggles my mind that it was published in 2009 and I am just learning about it Monday April, 2013. That's 4 years. If this article has any validity--and so far it seem very valid--how does it get by without media attention? Where is the outcry for further investigations? Where is the subsequent inquiries about who planted all this explosive paint?

I did some of my own investigation and found there is a disturbing number of Stock Market transfers that took place just before the attacks. There is also a purchase of a fortune of insurance by the owner of the WTC just prior to the attacks. In addition, purchases of defense industry stocks skyrocketed just before the attack. If the material was discovered in 2000 and immediately made available to every branch of the military, who on the inside may have participated in this event. There are so many valid suspects that it's almost impossible to place blame without a thorough official and public investigation.

My question to you, since obviously your insight and time spent scrutinizing this matter is far beyond mine, who or what could have planted that paint and been responsible for the murder of all those innocent people? If you don't want to answer that question, I understand. Don't worry about it.

It seems all Democrats are disappointed when the people they elected don't live up to there promises. The reason they can't is, when they get elected and are responsible for paying the bills, there isn't enough money. President Obama was elected twice telling you all they have to do is tax the rich, but the fact is the rich don't have enough money. If you took it all from them they couldn't pay the bills for a year. So now Obama and the rest of the Dems s that sold you a bill of goods are dangerously close to going down in history of bankrupting the United States. Obama now is thinking about his legacy and it really is shaping up to be a disaster. The truth is starting to rear it's ugly head about The real cost of Obama care, the debt is still increasing by trillions, and the economy still sucks, one in five are still out of work. The hundreds of billions you spent on green energy hasnt reduced green house gases by, well anything. But I guess you can look at the bright side everyone gets free birth control. Sorry, Women get free birth control Men still have to pay for theirs.

DAnnemarc: You are right, of course! There are a lot of very intelligent people that are so busy trying to raise a family, work their jobs, and just don't have the time to spend on doing much research. In addition, many may not want to risk losing their jobs by developing anything but a spirit of "teamwork" and making their wealthy employers even wealthier.

Those of us who are retired don't have to worry much about that and we have plenty of time to spend reading stuff. Since they are already trying to take away Social Security and Medicare we feel like we are already being attacked and are really in a war with those that are doing this to us. And it is not the very well off who are stupid by voting for Republicans...it's just the ones that are not so well off and are being harmed by the Republicans (and the Democrats who really aren't Democrats) that vote Republican and should know better. But then, with Democrats like the ones we have, who needs enemies (Republicans)? Those turn-coats are screwing us too!

Yeah, snakes have been seen as real demons by a lot of people and many people believe that if you dream of snakes it means that you will soon get sick. I suppose if you truly believe in that idea...your mind just might make your body sick. I know, I hate snakes myself..but I could pick them up...very carefully. But really, if there weren't any snakes, we'd be overrun by lots of mice...and that would probably bring on the Bubonic Plague. So now I feel bad for having killed a rattle snake a number of months ago. But, I would have hated even more if any of the children, that play in that area sometimes, would have gotten bitten.

Yes, the nano-themite can be painted on a surface when wet and it is very safe because it is not easily detonated when wet which might be part of the reason why they used it instead of a lot of normal explosives (which I believe they also used...but didn't have to use as much as they would have without nano-thermite). Nano-themite is even fairly safe...safer than normal explosives...when dry or in a solid form...like in a shaped charge...and it takes "special matches" to ignite nano-thermite. And those "special matches" can be controlled by a remote signal.

Normally, when they demolish a building using normal explosives...the building is not full of people when they install the explosives..and they plan to do the demolition right away....so it was very important not to have an accidental discharge before the time was right.

And also, I don't think painting the nano-thermite on the beams was done anyway. Nano-thermite, in another form like a putty, can be shaped around a vertical beam, in a diagonal fashion, to concentrate the explosive force so that it cuts the beams diagonally just like they do in a normal demolition (except they don't use nano-thermite in normal demolitions...just normal explosives). Nano-thermite is something our government has a lot of and, being high tech, costs a lot. Again, thermite has been around a long time...nano-thermite discovered just about 10 years before 911). NIST knows all about nano-thermite..having done copious studies on it...too bad they chose to completely ignore it in their "911 investigations".

Photos exist of these massive vertical core beams sticking up into the air and the diagonal cut was just so obviously there. Some tried to argue that the clean up crews could have cut it that way with a torch (they even suggest that the cleanup crews might have used nano-thermite--which is pretty ridiculous) to remove beams...but that would not make any sense at all because there would be absolutely no reason to spend all that extra cutting a much longer diagonal than a much shorted straight across cut just to remove beams. Those diagonal cuts are only done when demolition teams make them in order to bring the buildings down in their footprints...and that is exactly what happened.

Yes, I know there were an unusually high number of stock market transaction...well of course, it seems quite a few people knew what was going to happen...even little kids in school across the river told their teachers that those buildings wouldn't be there tomorrow. Certain important people were warned not to fly on that day.

And yes, I knew about the insurance that the owner, Silverstein, took out on the buildings just weeks prior to 911. But did you also know that the WTC towers had a really big problem that would have cost Silverstein a fortune to fix? The buildings were full of asbestos and it would have been very, very costly in removing the asbestos. But also having to keep the people out of the buildings while they did the clean up...which would have taken a very long time. That problem was solved in about 8-11 seconds the approximate time it took for the buildings to fall...near free-fall speed) on 911.

So when did they plant all of this nano-thermite and, perhaps, conventional explosives? For several weeks prior to 911 the office workers could hear lots of construction noises..banging, shaking, etc..they even closed off some floors and no one was allowed to go to those floors. The supposed excuse was that they were doing a rewiring job...yeah, I'll bet! They even told the office workers in the whole building to not come to work on a few days due to "construction".

So, since building 7 was not even hit by a plane and it came down in it's own footprint, at near the speed of free fall...just like a demolition...and Silverman, himself, may have slipped in saying "they decided to pull it"..meaning, perhaps, demolish the building...one has to ask oneself....how could they have sent in a demolition team into a burning building to place charges in the approximately 6 hours before it collapsed. It takes days or weeks to set up a demolition. The only way the building could have been demolished is by having already prepped it with explosives. Remember, never in the history of steel framed buildings has there ever been a complete building collapse right to the ground like that, planes or no planes, and buildings that had much hotter and longer burning fires. On 911 there were 3 of them...all coming down just like a demolition..at near free fall speed...and in their own foot prints.

These traitors had the motive, the means, and the opportunity. And their official conspiracy theory is so full of holes that I just don't understand how anyone can believe it! The only probability is that people just don't want to know the truth! The truth? You can't handle the truth!

You make a lot of leaps, Kend. I can do that too - with much more plausibility. Obama breaks his campaign promises because it's not as easy as it looks. He has to deal with a viciously obstinate obstructionist congress as well as trecherous and powerful bussiness organizations. That's not to mention the simple phenomena of the vested interests of a governing official being different from those of those of one running for election or those of the people. Just as the vested interests of an insurgent revolutionary seeking to overthrow the status quo are different from those of one who has already succeeded in doing so and who is now of the ruling party and thus finds himself replicating the tyrranny he just unseated. That's why Occupy Wall Street was leaderless and why you never trust a politcian. They always sell you out.

As to the money to pay for a good social system, it was here before the question is, "What happened to it?" or, more precisely, "Who stole it and where did they stash it?". But we have a pretty good idea.

Kend: The Bush administration stole the Social Security funds (or should I say "borrowed" but never intended to pay back) to pay for his stupid illegal Republican wars. And I don't care how they do it...sell the damn Pentagon and White House to the Chinese for all I care...our government OWES us our Social Security because we all contributed to it all our working lives. You just can't renege on that deal.

The Republicans have been trying all these years to destroy our Social Programs so you are just not credible, Kend, when you try to put the whole thing onto Obama...although, I have to say that Obama didn't exactly pull out of the Middle East like he should have..which would have saved the country from continuing to run up the wasteful military spending the Republicans started. We would all be a hell of a lot safer too...our military would not have murdered so many innocent civilians...creating millions of potential terrorists (blow back). But, of course, if Obama had acted to save our country all that money, and kept us out of all that debt, the Republicans would have ripped him up for being weak and unpatriotic. They probably would have assassinated him by now....just like JFK.

Obama inherited most of the war mongering inertia that may not have been so easy to stop...but I don't think Obama tried very hard. Maybe he was afraid of the assassin's bullet. I'm sure he knows by now how hateful the right-wingers are.

There is just no way you are going to convince any of us that Obama did all of this himself and that it wasn't the Bush administration that was the main cause of all this massive debt.

m1tmc, look past the arcanum and you'll see that we're the same. You agree with me on many things although you slap a "conservative" label on your opinions and I consider the same ones "lefty". I - and I suspect you as well - subscribe to the "old fashioned" and "naturalistic" values placing people over profits, i.e., human needs over corporate greeds. And we both abhor the influence of money in politics.

Keep comin' around, we're a people's democracy movement like Tunisia, Egypt and Tianemen Square more than we're the Bolsheviks. We're the "cowboys and the hippies and the rebels and the yanks", we're America all got together again.

Quote Michael Hudson in a Counter Punch piece:
Goldman Sachs "helped Greece conceal the rise in public debt, by mortgaging assets in a convoluted derivatives deal....so Greece’s obligation appeared as a cross-currency swap rather than as a debt. The government used off-balance-sheet entities and derivatives similar to what Icelandic and Irish banks later would use to indulge in fictitious debt disappearance and an illusion of financial solvency.

The reality, of course, was a virtual debt. The government was obligated to pay Wall Street billions of euros out of future airport landing fees and the national lottery as “the so-called cross currency swaps ? mature, and swell the country’s already bloated deficit.” (Beat Balzli, “How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt,” Der Spiegel, February 8, 2010.

Using derivatives to engineer Enron-style accounting enabled Greece to mask a debt as a market swap based on foreign currency options, to be unwound over ten to fifteen years. Goldman was paid some $300 million in fees and commissions for its aid orchestrating the 2001 scheme.

JPMorgan Chase and other banks helped orchestrate similar deals across Europe, providing “cash upfront in return for government payments in the future, with those liabilities then left off the books.”

Goldman Sachs also helped to screw with Russia's economy as well.

Kend: You're not saying that having a Keystone pipeline running through the US will make us energy self-sufficient are you? If the US was even getting any of that energy (the processed oil will be shipped off to other countries so a few people can get richer) but we would still be relying on Canada...that's not "self-sufficient". Although I'd much rather do business with Canada than all the way from the other side of the earth. You guys up there won't ever go all jihadist on us would you? But, I bet you would if some wanker of a politician started to send drones up there and murder your families. It's obvious that we have some real sicko psychopaths that manage to get into office.

And if we continue to frack we may all be able to keep ourselves warm in the Winter by setting our drinking water on fire. We can always drink Pabst Blue Ribbon made from water they have to ship from China at $100/barrel. But then we'd have to invade China not because we wouldn't give them all those freshly minted "funny money" US dollars...but because they'll be demanding gold. Fool them once and they are not likely to be fooled again.

This is all theater. Neither party wants to pass a budget because they are hiding something.

Obama is a failure. His "look forward, not backward" was code to tell the political criminals that "anything goes". They are more interested in shop lifters than the bush crime family. They are concerned that people are going to wake up, thats why they insist we need new gun laws yet allow the banks and mortgage companies to continue to operate just as they have since clinton deregulated them.

Research the SS POET. The "government" is nothing more than a lying, criminal organization.

You always put a little kernel of truth in your falsehoods so that they amount to ... ... FALSEHOOD! only, perhaps, ever more deceptive, quite skilled!

Goldman Sachs offered to sell to Greece a bogus product or derivative - from which they profitted quite handsomely, thank you very much, same as they did, all over the world, to governments and private entities alike, bringing about the great crash - to push the Greek debt back and hide it so Greece could retain membership in the EU.

Greece has been called - by lefty writers - an "economically rogue state" even before the crisis. Their tradition of a strong social system is not exemplified by their recent behavior. Many nations with such a tradition are quite solvent and in good economic health.

I didn't say you were dumb, Kend, I said you played dumb. It's all part of that fictional persona you project on this blog - to peddle your other fiction.

BTW, you, then, have dropped your straw man argument about the unfunded wars and the debt? It's OK, forget you ever tried it. That $20 must be already spent. Muddying the waters is the basic objective.

Kend says; "They like me, weird eh"!?
Don't pat yourself on the back just yet...A mentally broken dog will still come to his master when a can of food is opened.

How right you are, ptg0!

By the way, last night I mentioned that some people believe that if they dream of snakes..they will get sick. Last night I dreamt of Obama and Bush (two snakes) holding hands. This morning I woke up and saw on TV the dedication of the new Bush Library in Texas where Obama was standing there giving his speech and the cameras panned over to where Papa and Baby Bush were sitting. I got sick! Just wanted to throw up! Maybe someone will do us a favor and demolish that building like they did the WTC towers and the Pentagon (but without anyone in them, of course!). But, since the only ones to have done something like that were sitting right there...I doubt the Bush's will destroy their own dedicated library...unless they used it, like they did on 911, to scare people into illegally invading another country.

Palindromedary -- Did you see Rachael M last night? She was talking about the Popular Mechanics book "Debunking the 9/11 Myths"

When you mention things like the rewiring job is that book your source?

chuckle8: Ok, I found the transcript and skimmed it...finding the parts about Popular Mechanics. It sure looks to me like Rachel Maddow, whom I had once enjoyed listening to...but haven't in quite a while because I no longer get MSNBC, is doing the same kind of things that propagandists do when they want to discredit something. Just mix and mingle all the really crazy theories in with the credible ones and you can, most likely, end up getting a lot of people to write off all of them and go back to the craziest one of all..the official conspiracy theory. But since it is put out by our own government authorities, people will not think critically about all of the glaring holes in it.

I believe that the government has known, for a long time now, how to cover up things they don't want the masses to know about. They have manufactured lots of really crazy "conspiracy theories" to do just that...make them all look like crazy conspiracy theories.

It is often very difficult to know who is being used as a propaganda tool for the government. And for that matter...just who is the government?...it is certainly not the people anymore.

Yes, I've heard many, what I would consider very crazy conspiracy theories about 911...space based particle beam weapons that "melted" the WTC buildings, small nuclear bombs in the basements of the WTC buildings...but the information you get at Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth and a number of other similar sites are not dealing in crazy theories. They have the "smoking gun" evidence that has been scientifically analyzed and the results published in a peer-review scientific journal. They don't rely on far-fetched conspiracy theories...they don't get into who or blame any particular groups of people. All they have is cold hard evidence, and logical sense and facts based upon many years of engineering (yes, and even "civil" engineering) and architectural education and experience that debunks the official conspiracy theory. And there are thousands of "geeks" (as Rachel Maddow put it) that have analyzed the data themselves..and have already embarrassed NIST by catching them in their lies and obfuscations. They have gotten NIST to back down and change their stories a few times.

None of these architects and engineers are saying that space-based particle beam weapons or nukes were used. None of them are saying aliens did it. What they are saying is very doable and makes the most sense. All the clues are falling into place.

The people at A&E for 911 Truth are not of the same ilk as someone like any of the talk show hosts or radio personalities. They have many professionals that explain why they believe the way they do based upon their education and years of experience. But Rachel just throws them all together tainting everyone who believe they have sufficient evidence to refute the official government conspiracy theory.

What they want is to have an unbiased investigation...a real one this time...not with an overseer that was a friend and co-writer of Condoleeza Rice. Not with blowhard, lying, washed up politicians but panels of real scientists and engineers who are not being blackmailed by whether or not they will have employment for the rest of their lives..people that know and understand science. And have it completely open to the public. That is something you didn't get with the official 911 Panel. It was a whitewash! They ignored one hell of a lot of evidence and they picked and chose the evidence they wanted to ensure that the official government conspiracy would not be proven false. They even let that scoundrel, Bush, testify without taking an oath and with Cheney there to steer him.

And the 911 Commission book was the first book that Rachel mentioned as being worthwhile to read. To give that book some credibility was not surprising that she soon mentioned the Popular Mechanics piece of trash.

But notice how Rachel tied all of the conspiracy theories together tainting even the one that is the most doable.

I don't know how many, or who among them, are being used as useful idiots for those who have a big stake in getting people to believe in the official conspiracy theory...and who are spreading all of these other really crazy, far-fetched, conspiracy theories. The question is do they truly believe what they are saying? Are they being paid to cover for the government? Or maybe, they just don't understand physics or science!

You have to remember that some of these personalities that we all know as being Democrat, or liberal mouth-pieces are usually just trying to spread the word of the Democrat party and coming down on the Republican party. They are only interested in ensuring the Democrats are in "The Cat Bird's Seat". When you consider that both parties are really not truly representing the people and are really traitors to them, selling them out, then you have to start wondering if they are not just spreading propaganda that serves the overall illusion of democracy...ie: working to delude the people for those that rule over us.