The Republcans will not under any circumstance help the people of this nation, nor will they participate with any bill that the President or the Democrats bring to the floor. I have resigned myself to this since the Republicans took the House in 2010. All we can do is hope that Dems take back control of the house in 2014. its a long shot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT3K0_jEX7s&list=UUuFCfiQxxQFt3ELgYceCElw

It's a start, not a perfect budget, but a beginning. There's still far too much for the military-industrial-security state, and some nasty twists. Like trying to put a user fee in General Aviation, apparently those of us struggling to fly a little with Cessnas and Pipers can be lumped in with business jet owners. But that aside it faces a House which has stupidly voted to repeal the ACA 50 times. Any group that wastes its time like this will never vote for any decent plan that the president proposes proposes, and the public be damned. It would take an invasion from Mars to get today's Republicans to cooperate on anything.

Paul Ryan can dismiss the will of the vast majority and road to prosperity all he wants. He's holding his, "Roadmap for America," upside down, and still can't figure out that's why he's heading in the wrong direction......... down the austerity highway to hell!

Austerity, where? America is going into debt over a trillion dollars a year. I can't believe you guys buy into this.

Thom: You know The USA is monetarily sovereign (I learned that from you!) and the creator of all dollars. Taxes paid to the Federal Gov't are not used by The Federal Government to pay its bills. These taxes are dollars removed from the economy never to be used again. The Federal "deficit" is merely the difference between the dollars the Government creates, when it pays its bills, and the taxes that are paid and then removed from the economy. In other words, The Federal Gov't will created $3.77 trillion in FY'13 when it paid its bills - required by the Budget - and remove $3.03 trillion from the economy - when taxes are paid. The "deficit" only added approximately $700 billion to the economy. We need to educate the people of America to understand this basic financial concept used by The Federal Goverment.

Marc I can't believe that thom and you keep repeating the austerity things over and over there is no austerity. shouldnt you be asking where the hell all your hard earned tax dollars are going. A trillion in debt a year. No new bridges, roads, no space program, nothing. Oh sorry you have lots of failed green energy companies. you have free birth control, evrryone gets a cell phone. You still have12% of you with no jobs. But at least you still hate the rich. Obama has done a great job of that. Your politictions are are getting rich I guess. Al gore is doing ok. I don't need to get checked out both my company and my personal life have balanced budgets. I don't need anyone to pay my bills thank you very much.

Funny Marc that I remembered to send a check for over $39,000.00 for taxes today to pay for all the stupid Liberal programs that our government came up with.

The neat thing is I am the one with Alzheimer's. Just think how many people I could of created jobs for if I was healthy. Maybe I could have done even better and sent hundreds of thousands in taxes to support more green energy failures. Or maybe some really great art for the freeway. Why am I the bad guy? i just work hard and pay my taxes.

Hey everybody, I just wrote screed about Liz Wahl, formerly of RT. I thought maybe how Ken Ware did it wasn't the best way so instead of putting it on this blog I published it on the member blog http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/mark-saulys/blog/2014/03/why-i-dont-tr.... Please click there to check it out. Click my name or picture and you'll get that and my other pearls.

Hey Alice, I called Thom today and asked him about his idea of homelessness and mental illness and he agreed with everything I said. I take back all that shit I been spreadin' 'round about 'im.

Quote Kend:Those fees are just for the privilege of being in business. Woo luckey me.

Kend ~ Is that supposed to be sarcastic? Oh, boo hoo! You don't think running a profitable company is a privilege? You don't like being a success? At least you're not filing bankruptcy, sitting in the unemployment line, or maybe standing on a street corner holding a cardboard sign. Why not just cash in the business while you're still ahead and let someone else deal with the headache? You can't tell me that when all is said and done and you take your piece of the action that your income is going to be equal or less than your employees... If it is, then you really need to get your head examined. I got dinged pretty hard too this year; but, you don't hear me crying about it. However, don't let me discourage your whining... I get a big kick out of it! If I only had some sad violin music...

Oh well, it's not the same thing; but, I guess I'll just have to settle for Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein." Kinda suits you anyway...

Just careless bullshit, eh Kend? Ever use logic, Kend? If someone took you at face value they'd ... I guess they'd think you must have Alzheimer's.

DAnne no it's true I have a pretty good life and I shouldn't be whining. Cash in? I dont think there is anyone stupid enough to buy or start a new business now. Maybe some one with Alzheimer's as Mark thinks I have. I don't take a bigger wage then some employees I have to wait until year end for someone who can understand the tax code to tell me if and how much I made then maybe I am rewarded for my work.

I will apoligize for my complaining and thanks for reminding me there are a lot far worst off then me. I get a little grumpy when we have to pay city business taxes. We get very little in return. They just built a 25 million dollar walk bridge here in Calgary That is just 4 blocks from a bridge. Idiots seriously. It was made in Spain. I wish I knew how to cut and paste on my ipad so I could show you it. You would have to see it to believe it.

Reality is hard to believe Mark. I understand. When you live in a fantasy land where you think by taxing the "RICH" is going to solve all your problems. It might help slightly but it would be a drop in the bucket. Don't you think it would be better to all come together to get the great America back on its feet. rather then buying into this dividing the rich and poor and have them fight each other. Haven't you figured out that taxing the rich always ends up being the middle class that pays.

How did I know you were going to say that, Kend? How did I know you were going to revert to the standard PR talking points of casting the rich and powerful as the victims of society?

We can get along as equals and unite as equals when we genuinely are equals and act like it. Clever ploy that, saying we're dividing society, we are guilty of initiating "class warfare" when we act in our own defense.

Taxing the rich won't solve the problems 35 years of tax cuts and trickle down created overnight but if adopted as a regular, steady practice it will over some time.

Mark I am 52, married 32 years, i have 2 sons and 3 grandchildren. You?

Mark S, you can't be serious. What party are you talking about that lacks the professional PR and gets the shit kicked out of them? Are you talking about the socialist party or democrat party? As far as Thom and the mainstream democrat party I have never seen a more comprehensive campaign of division in my life. Let's start with this fictitious "war on women" (total BS) and the use of racism as a go to strawman at the drop of a hat. And the arbitrary hate of the so called one percent. Please let me know how much wealth classifies a person to be in the one percent so we all know who to hate.

Global, is this the old, "women and minorities demanding their rights is just creating a "needless" [read: needless to white males] division in society" argument is it? Because it's not even specious.

There are some divisions in society that are not bridgeable - or glossed over - without injustice thus they should not be bridged until there is justice. When you are accustomed to your own privilege and take others for granted you may well feel you are being robbed or unduly attacked when those you take for granted no longer accept the relationship as you have grown fat and happy with it. One great community organizer in Chicago, Shel Trapp, who was a somewhat distant mentor of mine - and of all of us - described this process well. He would say, when people who had been taken advantage of for a long time begin to demand their rights they are invariably accused by the priviledged, who had been exploiting them and taking them for granted - thus benefitting from the relationship and not wanting to allow it to change - of "creating a conflict". The heretofore exploited, however, he goes on, are not creating the conflict but exposing a conflict that's already there.

A black psychologist who used to listen to and call in to Mike Malloy when he was in town here broadcasting on a local radio station had a word for what many white, male heterosexuals are suffering from. He called it Privilege Disruption Syndrome.

Oh, or are you speaking for women and racial minorities saying they don't have a legitimate complaint?

Yes, we do need to impose reasonable taxation on thre rich. If they don't like it, they have the means to leave. We've gone through a second Gilded Age of upward wealth redistribution, and once again, it has taken a very heavy toll on the country. We need to restore regulations, reversing the Reagan-era deregulation frenzy. We need to restore the safety net. Reality: Not everyone can work, due to health or circumstances, and there simply aren't jobs available to all who need one right now. No American should suffer (or die) because of the whims of the market. The US as we've known it cannot exist without a massive middle class. Americans shout that they want to "rebuild the middle class," and this can't be done without shoring up the poor, providing the means out of poverty.

"As far as Thom and the mainstream democrat party…" Global gripes, "I have never seen a more comprehensive campaign of division in my life. Let's start with this fictitious 'war on women' (total BS) and the use of racism as a go to strawman at the drop of a hat. And the arbitrary hate of the so called one percent. Please let me know how much wealth classifies a person to be in the one percent so we all know who to hate."

Let's begin with the "strawman". Here in 21st Century America where young unarmed black men are routinely targeted by trigger-happy white guys and these killers alwayss skate free, Global dismisses this as some sort of "strawman, drop-of-a-hat", phony issue that no one need be concerned about. This is because people like Global only care if they are the ones being targeted. Since that is never the case, it's not worthy of discussion in Global's realm of reality. Okay Global, whatever you say.

War on women BS, Global? Gimmie a break.

Rather than take on the tedium of making my point cold turkey from scratch, concerning this war on women Global dismisses as BS, I'll just share an article I wrote a couple years back. Seems just as relevant today, so what the hey! Here goes:

WOMB FOR RENT (Published in the March 2012 issue of The Advocate): Do you recall Sigmund Freud’s famous theory, that girls suffer from so-called “penis envy”? As I observe the shenanigans going on in Congress nowadays, it seems the opposite is true. If there’s one thing old-school patriarchs can never get a grip on, it’s an ability women have that none of them will ever possess, despite all the advantages to being male in a “man’s world”. Only females have access to this unique form of power. It sets us apart, for we are the gateway to life itself. Whether a blessing or a curse, it is our exclusive domain, the power to open or close that gate. It is something we’ve inherited as females and it is our birthright. Can you imagine any reality more basic to the laws of the natural world? Which begs the question: what could be more sharply at odds with a patriarch’s worldview than this simple fact of life?

Through the ages, patriarchs have compensated for this by keeping us marginalized, disempowered, handicapped via artificial means. They accomplish this through a variety of methods, ranging from religious custom and repressive legislation to plain old brute force. This battle over the womb has dragged on, literally, for millennia. We women now find ourselves pitted against the current generation of misogynist bigots who are determined to roll back the proverbial clock. This could condemn women and girls to second-class citizenship status, at a level few of us, of either gender, are old enough to recall. Regardless of what motivates these womb-obsessed woman haters, their efforts to keep us down, at the mercy of our own biology, are relentless and never-ending. Womb envy? Perhaps. The latest episode of this ancient power struggle has erupted in the halls of Congress. We’ve just witnessed a drama so archaic, I’ve had moments when I’ve found myself wondering which century I’m living in. Imagine the implications of an all-male group of legislators, monopolizing a discussion about birth control! These men get to decide on policies that determine who has access to birth control and who doesn’t. It is a dialogue where no woman is allowed to participate, from which we’ve been brazenly and willfully excluded. Never mind that it is our reproductive health on the line, not theirs!

With this planet in such peril, its life support systems collapsing while the fate of humanity hangs by a thread, you’d think our elected officials would have better things to do than attack women’s hard-won rights. As the next presidential election looms near, corporate media’s pundit shills busy themselves filling the airwaves with their loud, toxic drivel. It is so transparent, so predictable, I’d find it laughable if only the stakes weren’t so high. Armed with their latest wedge issue, these guardians of the status quo have picked their target; not abortion, mind you, but birth control! Neo-con legislators not only want to re-criminalize abortion, they aim to take away all means of prevention as well. Yet when it comes to having babies, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t, especially if we’re poor.

Like all wedge issues, this one was manufactured to keep us collectively distracted from real problems we face: global warming, overpopulation, the nuclear threat, decaying infrastructure, monopoly crony capitalism, economic injustice, privatization of the commons with its ugly consequences, the erosion of democracy and so on. But for patriarchs and oligarchs, this tired old debate serves a duel purpose. As a wedge issue, it divides and conquers us - the “masses” - while simultaneously, keeping women “in their place”. Double bonus, for them! So here we are at the dawn of the 21st Century, having to fight for access to birth control yet again, while at the same time, a man’s access to gender-specific healthcare services is never scrutinized.

Just blows my mind, this ongoing obsession over the womb. Seems bizarre to me, how a mere body part can provoke so much controversy. Our wombs are fought over nonstop, coveted as if mere territory to be conquered. This uniquely female organ has been the object of male envy throughout recorded history; something highly valued, despite all the negative ways its value might manifest in patriarchal cultures.

With living-wage jobs so scarce these days and the “fruit of the womb” in such high demand, I see a potential source of revenue here. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime! So ladies, if you are of childbearing age, why not transform burden into bounty, leasing womb space to the wombless among us? In hard times like these, you’ve got to think creatively to get ahead. Were I not past childbearing age myself, I’d post an ad in the classifieds: “WOMB FOR RENT”. Hey, I’m a 99er too! I could use some extra cash.

Cheers! - Aliceinwonderland

Mark I don't consider myself rich. Unless you are talking about my family. Rich to me you are in the tens of millions Which I am not. If you are talking about how much wealth I have accumulated. I am somewhere in the top 10% of Canadians. My wife and I got married very young and had children in our early 20's. Bought a home when I was 21. both of us only have a high school diploma. We just worked hard and as I said I worked on the rigs at a very early age and did ok. Most of our wealth came from real estate. Buy low sell high. Alberta where I live is oil country and there are many booms and busts. Great for real estate investing. That's why I have invested in phoenix our dollar was the same and prices where very low. We will rent Them until your dollar and home prices rise and we will sell. We also have done well with private financing. Something we found out doesn't happen down there much. We own a business that we import and sell machinery. that business is growing and we hope will soon bring us income when we are not there soon and we can retire. As I mentioned before we have some younger employees that work for us that are on a profit bonus system we have and they will take over someday Hopefully. Pretty boring I guess. just wonder what do you consider Rich .

Ps I little tip we are on the edge of a major boom. Zero unemployment, major housing shortage. If even one of the five pipelines that are proposed goes through and we are close All hell will break loose. Watch for Edmonton real estate to explode soon.

Is that the investor tip of the day? Hurry up and buy now, in Edmonton...of course that tip, if taken seriously by investors would further inflate the value of those homes...you would stand to profit. Are you "pumping and dumping" kend? I guess someone who has investments on the line is certainly not going to talk it down. As for "exploding"...I wonder if that is not the oil fields you are referring to...like the blowouts...poisonous gases...in the air and in the water.

Here's Bruce Jack's water well pumphouse blowing up in his face in the presence of two investigators at the time. He got very badly burned and was lucky he didn't get killed when he opened the door of his water pump house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpW_j7uPCWs&feature=youtu.be

Kend: Well, actually, I don't know all of the facts as to why they felt they needed such a bridge...perhaps that other bridge was carrying heavy traffic and would have been dangerous to pedestrians...I don't know. But I do know that once cities (states, and nations) get their hands on resources they will spend them on, oftentimes, ridiculous things. I'm certainly not against art and beautification of cities...but, you are right, there are certainly more important things to spend the money on. Many people's lives depend on it. It's funny but back when I lived in San Jose area, they spent a ridiculous amount of money to put what looked like a giant dinosaur turd in a small downtown park. It was carved out of wood, I think, and it was supposed to be a coiled up snake god that had something to do with some indigenous Mexican ancient religion. It was not easy to see that it was supposed to be a coiled up snake...I used to call it a giant dinosaur turd. Damn politicians!!!

I have to say, though, that I really liked Edmondton and Calgary...oh, and Banff. Of course, I wasn't there for very long..certainly not during the winter. I thought the colors of everything from the traffic signs to the house roof tops were very colorful. Nice place...and that mall in Edmonton was pretty neat too.

LOL! Yes, definitely better than a turd!

Maybe one day I will check out the Stampede..in Calgary..I believe.

Some years back I was in Edmonton for business. Flew into Edmonton, rented a car, did my business which took a couple of weeks. Spent the weekend driving to Jasper Park, then down south to Banff, then to Calgary, then back up to Edmonton. I remember an area inside of, or near, Calgary where they had different street scenes representing different eras. There was a nice park there with an old fashioned bandstand and grassy place to sit while the old fashioned band played old fashioned tunes. Very pleasant! There was a small train that went around the park as well.

I had worked at the University of Edmonton during those two weeks on some high tech equipment they had (part of the process of manufacturing integrated circuit chips).

I remember that downtown Edmonton had all these tall buildings all connected with either subterranean passageways full of stores or passageways 1 or two stories above ground level that bridged the buildings.

I remember, driving to the University one morning and I had been going over the speed limit...this cop runs right out into the highway in front of me and waves me over to the little clearing where other cars had been pulled over as well. I am very grateful that the cop didn't actually give me a ticket...just a warning. In the US, you're likely to get shot if you make any sudden moves like reaching for your ID. ;-|

Yes, I often have the same problems finding my car even in smaller shopping malls. But that Edmonton Mall had an amusement park built right inside...with roller coasters and water slides. Another area had a big pool with a treasure ship...quite an interesting place to visit and spend some time. I have also gone to the Mall of America (near Minneapolis) which was also interesting...but I've always remembered the one in Edmonton.

That glacier park in Jasper park was quite a site as well.

Very, very nice, Kend! Very beautiful!