There may be three republican TV responses to the State of the Union Address tomorrow. How could we get a response from the Democratic progressive caucus covered by the media? Someone needs to point out that republican budget cuts are called austerity outside the US and it is generally recognized as a harmful strategy. Politico does us a favor by pointing out austerity has already weakened most red states in the US.

Poor states vote republican because if they don't, they are afraid Companies will leave and unemployment will get worse. Also because of racism. The red states are ok with entitlements they are just not OK with "those" people getting them.

They aren't poor because they vote Republican. They are poor because it is their class, unfortunately and as most of this site has pointed out, there is a inequality problem in America.

I got a kick out of Thom's report in today's show about the NSA propaganda cartoons targeting children. And here I thought it was only adult programming that was doing that...like one of my favorite TV shows..Person Of Interest. So now they are grooming the modern day Hitler youth to spy on us all for the ruling elite. They'll be so brainwashed that they will even turn their parents in for saying anything bad against the state. Which, of course, will only be a confirmation of what the state already knows mommy and daddy tweeted.

America's CryptoKids..Future Codemakers & Codebreakers cartoon featuring the cool dude green turtle and a host of other cute little sleaze-toon characters.

Remember kiddies...it's illegal to break cryptologic codes protecting the privacy of people's files unless, of course, you are doing it for the NSA!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/us/on-childrens-website-nsa-puts-a-fur...

Where is the link to the report? I don't see it.

Kend - I have tried not to get down on anyone, even when they do not know what they are talking about. On Friday, I disagreed with many of the people who are afraid of the NSA and made statements that sounded completely biased, fearful and not based on facts concerning our 4th Amend. But, you make it difficult not to be sharped tongued, because you keep putting your foot in your mouth or in an even lower extremity of your body. I have lived my whole life in California, a blue state with a Dem. Gov. and a over whelming Dem. legislators in our Capital, with the exception of my military service. Yes, we have had some bad years, primarily because of our Republican Presidents screwing up our economy nationwide and a few Republican governors who put us in the red while claiming it was necessary to cut our educational programs and other parts of our great State in an attempt to privatize as much of our state as they could. NOW, we have Gov. Brown a moderate DEMOCRAT and we are gaining jobs faster than the national average, in the black not the red on the books, have reinvested in our schools and have put large sums of capital in a "savings account for any future catastrophe that might hit the state like a devastating earthquake (we have perfect weather here as you know, 69 degrees with a slight ocean breeze today in S. CAL., but mother nature gave us earthquakes to even things out!) So before you start to rattle off some more of your right wing propaganda, try checking the facts first, before you say the blue states are in trouble. As each year passes we have a lower and lower debt, thanks to the work of our Democrat Gov. and Legislators and the policies they have created. What is scary, is they let guys like you near a computer to spread your right wing propaganda and those that actually believe it. Also, you sure talk a lot about the states when you are a Canadian, who visits that hell hole of a red state, Az.! You know, the state that runs more like a military dictatorship with a racist governor who can not help opening her mouth and showing how backwards that place is. Gosh, I guess that would be the type of place you would take your vacations in And, by the way, the dirty shale oil you are so proud about exporting to America, it is not for our consumption. The refinery owned by the Koch brothers, will use a few Americans to run the refinery, but the gasoline is for ASIAN CONsumption not for American households. So your keystone pipeline will line the pockets of the K. Bros., while we run the risk of a spill of some the most environmentally unfriendly oil that has ever been produced. Keep your oil we don't need another oil spill like the B.P. spill in the Gulf. K.W. (If California was a country, we would have the 11th. Largest economy in the World, in case you wanted to start knocking our economy. Where does the whole country of Canada come in on that list?)

Kend, Are you really a progressive just making fun of right wing dweebs with these posts?...because that's how I've been viewing them........ don't mean to blow your cover or anything.

The latest figures I could find on Google was for the Fiscal year 2011. Reuters states that California debt per Capita is $3,060 in 2011. In part due to the housing catastrophe created under Bush and that we have the largest population of all the states. Also, that figure includes money borrowed to pay unemployment benefits up to that point. Also that figure includes pension plans that were underfunded by both Republican and Democrat run governors, a problem facing Red States as well. When you start to compare numbers you fail to recognize housing has begun to turn around here and jobless figures have dropped in our state and with more homes being bought, the tax base increases. And with a 1/8th cent per dollar sales tax we are back to balanced books. I am not sure where you came up with your numbers, but I cannot find those numbers anywhere. Please let me know where they came from, so we can compare figures, if you really want to show what is happening here in the Blue States. And when you mention the states with the lowest debt per capita you are not mentioning population that affected the housing collapse due to Wall St. and in Alaska they rely on oil revenue to balance their budgets and not goods production and housing. With a world- wide recession during that time period, it is easy to distort the whole picture when you pick and choose what information to use to back up your numbers and what economic factors skew those numbers. K.W.

Blame FOX and shows like Meet the Right Wing Extremists for the self injurious voting habits of Red Staters...not to say these citizens are totally innocent either......they just need a shot at hearing the plain old truth, and it ain't happening.

The new directive from Uncle Billionaire is for his Teabag House members to message that they in fact are the willing bipartisan public servants...... Obama and the Dems. are the obstructionists for being unwilling to compromise. This is their main message to Red Staters for the midterms. I'm already hearing this over and over, not only from my Teabag Rep.Tommy REED, but many others as well. I'm guessing someone took these guys out, got em drunk, and drilled this into their little heads. Of course they had to keep the message simple.....

I got it from "stastia" I googled per capita debt by state. I don't know how to cut and paste it on my ipad. I am not very good at this stuff. My point is the blue states have more debt and they do. right? Of course things are getting better they had nowhere to go but up.

Alice, did you hear Thom go on and on about how all the homeless are "paranoid schizophrenics"? How assinine! Doesn't he know that defining an entire group of people by the anecdotal evidence of the few that he "passes by on the way to work" is how bigoted stereotypes are born?

I mean, I love the guy but DAMN! He thinks he's God's gift to talk radio and everything else!

He is God's gift to talk radio - I don't know about everything else - but he's gotta be called out on this! I'll go to war even with him on it!

I know the homeless MUCH better than he may EVER! Defining them by a conspicuous few who make a constant spectacle of themselves is just a textbook example of that kind of stereotyping. Quite a lot, if not most, homeless people are very discreet about their housing status and you would be shocked to find out they were homeless. They don't give any appearance - don't look or act homeless in any way. That's a necessary strategy for their survival. To survive in the wilderness it doesn't matter if your shoes match, only if they're warm and dry. To survive in the city you have to look and act right or have the door slammed in your face and you won't be able to go inside anywhere when the Polar Vortex comes.

The homeless, thus, are a diversely various group. The majority are not mentally ill, the mentally ill amongst the homeless are comparably anomolous to the broader society and experience the same social outcast status among their fellow homeless people that they do from the society at large.

Our workers' organization (that I wrote about on the forum) started as a project of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. We organized straight out of the shelters and dealt with the population that was "one paycheck away", that was now homeless, now not and now homeless again, i.e., aptly called "precarious" workers who moved in and out of homelessness with some regularity or were just not too far from being on the streets.

Amongst the poor, working poor, as it were, the poor minorities, poor whites, the ghettoes, housing projects, "trailer trash" homelessness is a routine occurrance, just a fact of life. Given their poverty - and precarity - it's simply logical that anyone from those stratas and segments of society are very likely to be homeless at one time or another - and, indeed, they often are. Almost everybody from that part of society has someone close to them who is or had been homeless if, in fact, they hadn't been homeless themselves. Amongst the lower classes it's simply routine and commonplace. I've even known completely sober, most uninsane, poor laborers make a rational choice to be homeless - to sleep in the park for a while, for example - because housing costs were so forbidding and they either wanted to save some money for some purpose - like for a car so they could leave town - or just because they wanted more money left from their paychecks than if they paid almost all of it in housing costs.

The most together, most sober, most uninsane people I'd ever known were a homeless family, a homeless couple with their homeless children, of which the parents sat with me on the Board of Directors of our workers' center.

In the '90s, a study by the University of Illinois found that 8% of the population of Illinois had been homeless at one time or another. Because people are commonly don't like to say they had been homeless the researchers thought the actual number could be significantly higher. Thus, they surmised,10% or more of the population of Illinois could've been homeless at one time or another.

Another study found that what distinguished the homeless from the rest of the population was that the homeless didn't have any family, or any family of any means, to back them up if things went wrong in their lives.

Now, for people who come from a middle to upper class background - who'd always had a full refrigerator and a nice place to live; whose lives went seamlessly from idyllic childhood, to highschool, prom, to college, to gainful career; who think that not only their basic needs have to be met but that everything in their lives has to be esthetically pleasing as well - for them, far from being routine and commonplace, homelessness is just unthinkable and unimaginable and just beyond anything. As far as they are concerned homeless people simply have to be insane or some kind of unfathomable aliens.

I guess there really are "two Americas".

WOW Mark, you might actually be on to something where ole Thom is concerned. I wasn't listening to him today, but I'll take your word for it. And I agree, that sucks. Thom's doing the public a huge disservice by stereotyping homeless people this way. While I think it's a safe bet that many (maybe even a majority) of schizophrenics are homeless, that does NOT translate to a majority of homeless people being schizophrenics. It's hard for me to believe Thom actually intends to instill such a stereotype of homelessness in his listeners' minds; but whether he does or not, he needs to be called out on this.

Schizophrenia aside, it seems to me that homelessness could be the cause of mental illness rather than the end result. Anyone who can live in such hideous circumstances for any length of time and keep their sanity would have to be made of sturdy stuff, mentally as well as physically.

Anyway Mark, I think you should try to get on Thom's radio show and address this issue with him. You have been an advocate for the homeless; you've had more than superficial contact with these folks and have seen that side of reality first-hand. You obviously know what you're talking about. I really think Thom could use a good stiff shot of your perspective on this. Thom's not cocky or arrogant; on many occasions I've heard him cop to inaccuracies and/or back down in debates or discussions where it seemed appropriate. He doesn't have to be right all the time. You seem more than qualified to set him straight. I'm certain that if you're respectful and civil towards Thom (as I'm sure you will be) and present your case persuasively enough, he will listen with an open mind. - Aliceinwonderland

Responding to the post about Greece and debt ...

Respectfully, I seems you are saying either we should return to the days of pre-Reagan tax cuts to fund those things that made this country great - lisic relatively free upper education, buildina infrastructure the world has never before seen, and the technologthat hat revolution end our lives -or - throw our hands up into the air and join the working poor. There is plenty to feed , house, educate, anof provide healthcare. Uncontrolled debt is merely a symptom of giving up our political control - hence what we see ilost antes owned by corporate power.

Quote richinfolsom:Why do people vote against their own best interest? cultural values? Religion? Limited educational opportunities? Type of work?

I am confused by your response, especially the part about progressive being the educated elite. The history of progressive movements, throughout history, has come from the people not the elites. Look at the Gilded Age and how over time, with the help of a free press and the leadership of reformers, the people were able to overcome the Plutocracy that had destroyed our Republic. Why do people vote against their own interest, is a question as old as known history. During most of recorded history, people did not enjoy the right to vote or any other rights. However, the masses had to be controlled by those in power and they did this through laws, taxes and fear. As civilization evolved they used class warfare to control the masses and maintain their power. Today, we see this strategy in the attacks on education, the poor and people’s prejudices to keep the masses from looking at the real problem –the oligarchs and corporations.

I think it is curious that all the States that formed the Confederacy are “red”. Just as the vast majority of the soldiers in the army of the South were not slave owners, they were convinced that their cause was the same as the aristocracy’s. They were given enemies to distract them from the facts that most of them ranked just above that of a slave. Ignorance and constant propaganda, promoted by modern technology, makes this tactic even more effective today.

There is a lot of intellectual elitism on the Left and it is a problem of no small magnitude. It causes us to lose the blue collar worker to the Republican Party as the Right Wing PR machine knows just how to reach and how to talk to that essential demographic. I would say that the Left is in many ways its own worst enemy.

Mark, this afternoon I'd just turned the radio on when I heard someone named Mark call in to Thom's show, wanting to talk about the homeless, or some aspect of their situation. For a minute or two I got pretty excited, thinking it was you; but then as the conversation continued, my excitement faded. The caller made no mention of schizophrenics or stereotyping, so it obviously wasn't you. Your post further confirms this.

It's too bad your work schedule interferes with your ability to call Thom while he's on the air. Maybe I should try doing it. If I succeed, I will certainly update you with his response.

I've always been disgusted and sickened by the stigma placed on homelessness. It's hard enough dealing with those circumstances without everyone assuming you're mentally ill. - AIW

KW and esp Kend -- You are viewing the debt in a one-dimensional frame. No serious economist views it as you do. The debt that matters is the ratio of debt (the one you guys talk about) to the GDP. Even the extreme right wing economists Reinhart and Rogoff in their bogus report paid for Pete Peterson talks about no country can survive if that ratio exceeds 90% (they did not mention anything about how many trillions the debt would be before failure of the country). As a side note, a graduate from UMass got the R-R spreadsheets and exposed the fact they left off countries that recovered from debt far worse than 90%.

Using my grandson and the dumping of debt on him can illustrate the complexities of understanding why the ratio is the important statistic, Assuming the current per capita debt is $6000 let us see what happens between increasing the debt some more vs applying austerity, It has been shown that currently govt expenditures have a 60% return. For the state to go further into debt would involve such things as paying for his education. The first case to consider is doing nothing. In the case we can assume some nominal salary for my grandson. The number does not matter except for comparison and illustration. Let's assume he would make $70,000 annual salary if we do nothing. If the state were to go into further debt to $10,000 per capita, then with a return of 60% my grandson (he is now 3 yo and the joy of my life) would make $76,400 annual salary. If we apply austerity and reduce the debt to $2000 per capita his annual salary would become $63,600. This means that he has $12,800 more to pay off the $8000 more in debt. It seems to me having a $10,000 debt is better than having a $2000 debt.

Looking at the list of the 10 poorest states, all except Montana are east of (or border on) the Mississippi River. That means they are older states. Those nine also happen to be concentrated in the South. This is significant: They were all slaveholding states. They focused on producing commodities, whereas the northern states produced more value-added goods, more manufactured goods, more capital-intensive goods. Combined with national policies that conferred economic advantages on the relatively industrialized, higher capitalized North—policies that created some of the friction that led to the Civil War—the South’s economic development lagged.

As is common in societies based on producing raw commodities, the Old South had an elite that owned the land and employed a poorly educated workforce to plant, tend, and harvest the crops. Historically, then, education was of less importance, and therefore emphasized less, in the South than in the North—a trend that contributed ongoing economic advantages to the North.

After the Civil War, Republican carpetbaggers from the North kicked around the defeated South, further widening the economic gap between the two regions. One political consequence was that the Deep South was monolithically Democratic for the next century. Only in the last generation, when the secular counterculture took over the Democratic Party, did many Southerners finally bury the distant past and register as Republicans.

In short, those nine erstwhile slaveholding states have been lagging behind the northern states economically for two centuries. Just because one generation of leaning Republican has not eliminated a disparity that was entrenched for centuries, it is not an indictment of Republicans.

As for Montana, whose people elect Democrats and Republicans to statewide office with almost equal frequency, its economic status has a geographical cause. Montana is remote and its climate is harsh; consequently, it has never attracted enough people to achieve an economic “critical mass” to advance much beyond the commodity-related businesses of farming, ranching, and mining. That is why it has lagged economically—not because of anything Republicans have done.

Another common mistake in economic analysis, seen often, for example, in the (irrational) rationale that liberals use when resisting cuts in marginal tax rates, is to adopt a static rather than dynamic view—to see life and economic conditions in terms of snapshots rather than as a motion picture. In the politically motivated attempt to blame Republicans for the lower incomes in the 10 poorest states, Thom Hartmann have taken one snapshot—of the census’ income statistics—and combined it with another snapshot—of current political leanings—to create the impression that Republican policies make America poorer.

The more important factor is not the economic ranking of states at a point in time, but the overall trends. An important article by John Merline compared the economic performance of blue states and red states during the presidency of Barack Obama. The trend of economic indicators clearly favors Republican states. Democratic states have experienced lower growth in both jobs and income in the last few years. Home prices have fallen further in blue states, and their unemployment rates are higher. In other words, a dynamic economic analysis of the states casts a far more favorable light on Republican states than static analysis. Since real life is dynamic, not static, Republicans can make the stronger case about which party is best suited to lead the way to greater prosperity.

The most fundamental difference between the data that conservatives prefer—that the 10 poorest cities are longtime Democratic strongholds—and the data that liberals will be more inclined to cite—that the 10 poorest states are predominantly Republican, is that conservatives can point to actual policies that Democrats implemented that contributed to the impoverishment of the cities, while the liberals cannot point to specific GOP policies that have caused the poorer states to lag behind.

The Democratic case is illusory and circumstantial; the Republican case is solid and substantial. However, in a country where so many people are economically and historically illiterate, combined with the human proclivity whereby “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest” (Paul Simon, “The Boxer”), the Democrats may be able to score some points with a hollow argument. The Republicans, though, have the facts on their side.