While the "safety net" prevents personal, family or community disasters, "rights of citizenship" provide the foundation for society itself.

Senator Joe Manchin, echoing the rightwing billionaire's think-tanks' PR and every Republican in Congress, recently said his objection to free college for students and eyeglasses for seniors was that such things created an "entitlement society," a slur that means "a nation of welfare recipients."

In that, he displays a fundamental ignorance about what governments do and how societies work, as well as the difference between what we usually call the "social safety net" and things people should expect simply as a "right of citizenship" in a first-world country. He also misunderstands the difference between expenses and investments.

A "social safety net" is there to catch you when you fall. Unemployment insurance keeps you from becoming homeless when capitalism has one of its periodic hiccups. Food stamps tide you over in rough times. FEMA programs provide mobile homes and a stipend to keep people rendered homeless by natural disasters like hurricanes, forest fires, and floods alive and well.

Read more at HartmannReport.com.

-Thom

Friday's Daily Stack

Article: "Conservatives & Billionaires Want You To Confuse "Rights of Citizenship" for "Welfare"" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "How Finland Solved Homelessness" by Laura Paddison.

Article: "Joe Manchin Should Stop Talking About 'Entitlement'" by Jamelle Bouie.

Quote: "Today, we are ending welfare as we know it" - Bill Clinton.

Article: "Dwight D. Eisenhower and the birth of the Interstate Highway System" by Lee Lacy.

Article: "History of the United States public debt" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)" by Wikipedia.

Article: "FBI releases new video footage of person placing pipe bombs near RNC and DNC headquarters before Capitol riot" by Christina Carrega.

Article: "Video surfaces of Marjorie Taylor Greene confronting Parkland shooting survivor with baseless claims" by Paul LeBlanc.

Article: "Armed Picnics and Snipers at Family Dollar: Life in a Town With a Government-Approved Militia" by Matt Cohen.

Article: "Sturmabteilung" (Brownshirts).

Article: "The Sturmabteilung: Hitler's Unofficial Army Of Thugs" (brownshirts) by Gina Dimuro.

Why Isn't Jan 6th Considered An "Act of War" By More GOPers?
- Rep. Joe Walsh Host, "White Flag w/Joe Walsh" (on Apple podcasts) / Former U.S. Congressman (R-IL, 8th District) & former Presidential Candidate / Author, "F*ck Silence: Calling Trump Out for the Cultish, Moronic, Authoritarian Con Man He Is"

Article: "Trump's new 'chilling' statement about the election and Jan. 6 disturbs many observers " by David Badash.

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976

Case: "First National Bank Of Boston V. Bellotti", 1978

Case: "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" (2010)

Article: "The DLC Lives: "Third Way" Democrats Are Trying to Push the Party Rightward" by Michael Corcoran.

Article: "There's Nothing "Normal" About Having a Middle Class: It has to be Chosen" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "The Tipping Point: Most Americans No Longer Are Middle Class" by Marilyn Geewax.

Article: "North American Free Trade Agreement" (NAFTA) by Wikipedia

Article: "General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade" (GATT) by Wikipedia

Article: "Trump: Since China joined WTO, U.S. has lost 60,000 factories " by Lauren Carroll.

Article: "Fact check: Trump makes false claims about his record on manufacturing and coal jobs" by Daniel Dale.

Article: "Report on the Subject of Manufactures" by Alexander Hamilton.

Article: "Which States Are Givers and Which Are Takers?" by John Tierney.

Article: "US GDP by Year Compared to Recessions and Events" by Kimberly Amadeo.

Article: "Trump put 5,000 Taliban fighters back in battle and tied Biden's hands in Afghanistan" by Jon Perr.

Article: "Overton window" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Rep. Joe Crowley loses primary to 28-year-old newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez" by Alex Seitz-Wald and AP.

Article: "Blue Dog Coalition" by Wikipedia.

Site: "New Democrat Caucus".

Article: "Energy cannibalism is happening so fast that the collapse of the oil industry will derail renewables" by Pakalolo.

Video: The Beverly Hillbillies Opening and Closing Theme 1962 - 1971 HD.

Article: "Why the war in Iraq was fought for Big Oil" by Antonia Juhasz.

Article: "Nixon shock" by Wikipedia.

Article: "History of Federal Minimum Wage Rates Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938 - 2009" by DoL.

Article: "Medicare Advantage" (Medicare Part C) by Wikipedia.

Video: TogetherHealth TV Commercial, 'Your Medicare Benefits' Featuring William Shatner.

Video: Medicare Advantage and Joe Namath Commercials.

Article: "Judge orders Chicago police union boss to not comment on city's vaccine mandate" by Erin Doherty.

Article: "Sen. Braun invites unvaccinated Chicago officers to apply for Indiana openings" by Emily Longnecker.

Article: "127 Washington State Police Employees Fired Over Vaccine Refusal" by Human Events.

Article: "Five times as many police officers have died from Covid-19 as from gunfire since start of pandemic" by Ryan Young, Jason Morris and Ray Sanchez.

Article: "New York City requiring COVID vaccine for police officers, firefighters and other city workers: "Privilege comes with a responsibility"" by CBS/AP.

Article: "United Airlines Terminates 232 Workers For Not Taking Covid Vaccine" by RTTNews.

Article: "Delta Air Lines CEO ditches 'divisive' COVID vaccine mandate; marks 90% employee vaccination rate" by Angelica Stabile.

Site: Milpitas PRT.

Site: "Voqal".

Article: "Nike Shoes Manufacturing Process" by OSU.

Article: "Apple uses more suppliers from China than Taiwan for first time, data shows" by Guardian.

Article: "Ralph Nader" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Housing benefit in Germany (Wohngeld)" by IamExpat.

Article: "Former Kyrsten Sinema adviser calls her out on CNN: 'Without voting rights, we can't have a strong democracy' " by Matthew Chapman.

Article: "AT&T has yet to answer for its support of OAN, and customers have had it" by April Siese.

Tweet: "Biden and Schumer need to pack the $3.5 trillion bill with another few hundred billion in goodies just and specifically for WV and AZ, do a big PR rollout of them, and then bring it to the floor for a vote this week. Dare those sellouts to vote against their own states." by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Sherman County, OR" by Data USA.

Article: "An Extremely Detailed Map of the 2020 Election" by Alice Park, Charlie Smart, Rumsey Taylor And Miles Watkins.

Article: "Wind Power" by Sherman County.

Article: "Money Blows in to a Patch of Oregon Known for Its Unrelenting Winds" by Lee Van Der Voo.

Article: "PGE ramps up clean energy plans to comply with tougher carbon pollution standards" by Cassandra Profita.

Article: "DOJ got an official referral to open a 'criminal investigation' into ex-Sec. Elaine Chao: report " by Matthew Chapman.

Book: Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr.

Site: INVISIBLE HAND.

Video: Do The Rights Of Nature Require Land Back? (w/Melissa Troutman & Joshua Boaz Pribanic).

Site: Breaking the Sun.

Site: Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER).

Article: "Dead as the moa: oral traditions show that early Māori recognised extinction" by Priscilla Wehi, Hēmi Whaanga, Murray Cox.

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

Video: Ted Kennedy on Republicans and Minimum wage. "When does the greed stop?"

Quote: "A number of my friends who belong in these very high upper brackets have suggested to me, more in sorrow than in anger, that if I am reelected they will have to move to some other Nation because of high taxes here. I shall miss them very much." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Address at Worcester, Mass.," October 21, 1936.

Article: "Governor Hochul Announces Construction Start at Largest Green Hydrogen Plant in North America " by Governor Kathy Hochul.

Article: "Powering Niagara Falls and the Nation" by MSU.

Article: "Portland's Cully neighborhood finds allies in fight for clean air" by Monica Samayoa.

Article: "Hanford workers were given leaky respirators at contaminated job site, contractor's documents reveal" by Patrick Malone and Hal Bernton

Article: "Daniel G. Nocera" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Milestone: Wind turbines can balance the electricity grid" (Denmark) by Jesper Nørskov Rasmussen.

Article: "The Newest Big Pharma Scam Exposed" by Thom Hartmann.

Book: "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, Jan. 10 1776.

Article: "KPFA" by Wikipedia.

Article: "First Amendment to the United States Constitution"

Article: "J.D. Power" by Wikipedia.

Quote: "Were American drug prices to fall, or coverage of prescription drugs to retrench, the drug market would shrink and some of those investments would not be made. That's a potential innovation loss." - Mitch McConnell.

Article: "Big Pharma is on a stock buyback spree" by Bob Herman.

Site: Climate Solutions.

Site: Bike for Peace.

Article: "Republicans Are Planning to Hijack the Next Election. Dems Are Squandering Their Chance to Stop Them" by Ari Berman.

Coming up Monday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET

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