Donald Trump suggested that the Affordable Care Act was a clever ruse by our first black president and his Democratic friends to have a successful health-care system in place for his own presidency, but was set up to fail in the first year of the next president's term.

Trump said (on 3/10/2017) that this year "would be a disaster for Obamacare. That's the year it was meant to explode, because Obama won't be here. That's when it was supposed to be, get even worse. As bad as it is now, it'll get even worse."

While most people are rolling their eyes (why would President Obama do that, particularly when everybody expected the next president to be Hillary?), there's actually a substantial grain of truth to Trump's assertion. However, he has identified the wrong culprit as the person who poison-pilled Obamacare for 2017. That distinction would go to Marco Rubio (and his Republican helpers in the Senate).

Let's step back to 2015 for the entire story, which is bizarre and fascinating.

Read more here

-Thom

(What do you think? Tell us here.)

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10:30pm... Are We Facing An Oligarch Supreme Court? (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

Monday's Daily Stack

First Day of Spring / International Day of Happiness.

Article: "Neil Gorsuch Has Web of Ties to Secretive Billionaire" by Charlie Savage and Julie Turkewitz.

Article: "Russia hearing live: FBI director Comey says no information to confirm Trump's wiretap claims" by Tom McCarthy.

Article: "Gorsuch’s Rise Raises Concerns Regarding His Independence" by Christopher Kang.

Quote: "The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer" - Henry Kissinger.

Article: "Budget director: We can't ask coal miners or single moms to pay for Public Broadcasting" by Paulina Firozi.

Tweet: "If saving these programs means I'm out $22.36 a year, I'm good. Now give me back the $575 I pay to keep the war machine running and the $368 I pay in corporate welfare to big oil and Walmart." by Steve Silberman.

Article: "STUDY: Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All" by Michael B Kelley.

Site: Media Matters for America

Site: RT.

Site: France 24.

Site: BBC News.

Site: Al Jazeera.

Article: "Speakers' Corner" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Fear of Diversity Made People More Likely to Vote Trump " by Sean McElwee and Jason McDaniel.

Article: "Comey Confirms F.B.I. Inquiry Into Trump Campaign Links to Russian Hackers; Says He Has ‘No Information’ on Trump’s Wiretapping Charge" by Matthew Rosenberg, Emmarie Huetteman and Michael S. Schmidt.

Article: "Thom Hartmann: How Republicans Quietly Sabotaged Obamacare Long Before Trump Came into Office" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Here's the truth about Meals on Wheels in Trump's budget" by Gregory Korte.

Article: "Report: Up to 1,000 More U.S. Troops Could Deploy to Syria" by Kristina Wong.

Hour Two: Why Do Conservatives Think The Arts Are "Welfare For the Rich Liberal Elites?"
- Ryan Girdusky, Red Alert Politics

Article: "Ending Federal Funds Will Be The Best Thing For The Arts In Decades" by David Marcus.

Article: "Tucker Carlson: National Endowment For The Arts Is "Welfare For Rich Liberal Elites"" by Media Matters.

Article: "Trump’s N.E.A. Budget Cut Would Put America First, Art Last" by Andrea K. Scott.

Article: "Gov. Robert Bentley will resign mid-April, Alabama Representative says" by Leada Gore.

Article: "Sessions' Senate replacement raises eyebrows in Alabama" by Dakin Andone.

Article: "First Amendment to the United States Constitution"

Quote: "It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being at the essence of getting the nominations for president or elected president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and Congress members. So now we've just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election's over'." - President Jimmy Carter on unlimited money in politics on the Thom Hartmann Program, 28 July 2015.

Article: "Millions more of the same" by Iowa Fiscal Partnership.

Article: "Robert Mapplethorpe" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Piss Christ" by Andres Serrano.

Article: "Humpty Dumpty" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" by Wikipedia.

Talk Media News Segment:
- Victoria Jones

Article: "Comey: No evidence to support Trump’s wiretap claim" by Bryan Renbaum.

Article: "Comey confirms FBI investigating potential ties between Russia, Trump campaign" by Bryan Renbaum.

Article: "White House plays down FBI investigation into Russian officials and Trump’s campaign" by TMN.

Article: "NSA director says British intelligence was not asked to spy on Trump" by Spencer Ackerman.

Article: "Comey Letter Swung Election For Trump, Consumer Survey Suggests" by Brad Fay.

Article: "Neil Gorsuch hearing: nominee urged to reject Trump’s attacks on judiciary" by David Smith.

Article: "GOP rep: Lawmakers eyeing major changes to Secret Service" by Olivia Beavers.

Site: "Goats for the old Goat".

Site: Governor Free Don Siegelman

Article: "Trump fuel economy rollback will kill jobs and cost each car buyer $1,650" by Joe Romm.

Article: "Canadians With Cystic Fibrosis Live 10 Years Longer Than Americans With the Disease" by Nicholas Bakalar.

Article: "Record-breaking 2017 for ETFs fuels fears of stock market bubble" by Chris Flood.

Article: "China’s push to become a tech superpower triggers alarms abroad" by Louise Lucas and Emily Feng.

Site: Our Revolution

Law: "Buy American Act", 1933.

Article: "Benefit corporation" by Wikipedia.

Book: "Threshold: The Progressive Plan to Pull America Back from the Brink" by Thom Hartmann

Article: "'That's not how it works': Trump's grasp of Nato questioned" by Lauren Gambino.

Article: "Trump’s approval rating drops to 37%, a new low" by TMN.

Bill: "SB 562. Californians For A Healthy California Act." by Senators Lara and Atkins.

Site: Healthy California.

Article: "World Health Statistics" by WHO.

Geeky Science Alert: "Are Your Sperm in Trouble?" by Nicholas Kristof.

Article: "'Extraordinary denial rate' of 9 in 10 earthquake claims rattles Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak" by Corey Jones.

Article: "Love Canal" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Petition Before SCOTUS Seeks To Nullify Election" by Shannon Fisher.

Article: "Boehner's Bibi invite sets up showdown with White House" by Jake Sherman.

Article: "Palm Beach Is Sick of Paying for Donald Trump's Weekend Visits to Mar-a-Lago" by Jennifer Calfas.

Article: "Trump Tower Security Costs: NYC Spending $150K Per Day To Protect Melania And Barron" by Simone Wilson.

Article: "Outer wrap coating has failed on parts of Line 5, Enbridge confirms" by Garret Ellison.

Article: "Rundle Won't Charge Prison Guards Who Allegedly Boiled Schizophrenic Black Man to Death" by Jerry Iannelli.

Tuesday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET

I'll be debating Neil McCabe of Breitbart News.

And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...

The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"

And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...

Is Trump's Infrastructure Plan More Welfare For Giant Corporations Or A Great Stimulus?

Vote here!

Are We Entering a Dark Dystopian Libertarian Worldview?

Does Trump Have A Deep State Of His Own?

The Billionaire Coup D’état

On tonight’s Big Picture, Thom discusses the big money behind President Donald Trump and why the Mercer’s may be the new Koch brothers with investigative journalist Greg Palast. Then for the Big Picture Rumble, Thom is joined by conservative Brian Pruitt and progressive Alex Lawson to talk about the real values revealed in the GOP budget and the health care plan.

Trump Has Become an (Unwitting?) Puppet of Fox News Disinformation

Billionaires Already Control Most Aspects of Life, Now They Want to Take Away Art Too?

We Have a Horrible Trade Deal with Korea, So Why Isn't Trump Talking About It? (w/Lori Wallach)

Should the Democrats Be Pushing Identity Politics or Economy Politics?

Could Selfies Pump More Adrenaline Than SKYDIVING?

Fox News Is a Brainwashing Cult, Controlled by Billionaires, Don't Fall for It!