This week - the Federal Reserve is expected to announce that it’s winding down its efforts to jump start our economy

Thom Hartmann: And greetings my friends, patriots, lovers of democracy, truth and justice, believers of peace, freedom and the American way. Thom Hartmann here with a good nights sleep. Welcome back. Welcome back to me, I guess. Welcome back to you. It’s so nice to be in this, in this chair, sitting behind the good old working class stainless steel microphone. None of that pretentious gold microphone garbage. Anyhow, great to be here. And I promise I won’t swear at or lose control with any conservatives today.

Thom Hartmann: No suck up interviews, this is real talk radio and television. Welcome back, Thom Hartmann here with you. Paul Gunter on the line. BeyondNuclear.org is the website. Paul, today is the, I have a dear friend who lives in Tokyo, who I have known for 30 years, and we have spent a lot, a lot of time together. And his, in fact his wife took Louise on a trip up into the northern parts of Japan last time we were there, we stayed at his home.

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Thom Hartmann: Greetings my friends, patriots, lovers of democracy, truth and justice, believers in peace, freedom and the American way. Thom Hartmann here with you. At the beginning of our second hour John Nichols will be dropping in with us, as he has every day this week and last, as I recall giving us an update on what’s going on in Wisconsin. Doug Cunningham, in our third hour, is going to drop by with workers independent News Service.

Thom Hartmann: And welcome back, Thom Hartmann here with you, six minutes past the hour. Okay we’ve got Republicans in Missouri, you’ve got Jane Cunningham for example. And I believe that Louise is posting her, the phone number of her office if you’d like to share your thoughts with her. She is a state senator. State senator Cunningham, senate resolution 27 passed yesterday. She was appointed yesterday to serve as chair of the General Committees Laws. There’s a rolling scroll of news, you know.

Thom Hartmann: Greetings my friends, patriots, lovers of democracy, truth and justice, believers in peace, freedom and the American way. Thom Hartmann here with you. Our telephone number: 866-987-THOM. And if you would like to argue with me, occasionally people do, 866-745-CONS. It’s actually a separate set of numbers, 866-745-CONS. and in our program today, in our second hour we’re going to get into some detail in what’s going on in Wisconsin.

Thom Hartmann: Greetings my friends, patriots, lovers of democracy, truth and justice, believers in peace, freedom and the American way. Thom Hartmann here with you. And as we approach the end of the year, I think it’s an interesting time, and this isn’t one of those kind of CNN fluff pieces of the ten worst wardrobe malfunctions of the year or something like that. But rather take a cold hard look at the situation in America.

Thom Hartmann: This is the 50th anniversary of a whole bunch of things from the inauguration of John Kennedy, I mean it just kind of happens around this time of year. From the inauguration or John Kennedy to the inauguration to Ronald Reagan, which coincided with the so-called students in Iran releasing the hostages in Iran. So let’s take a, let’s step into the way-back machine for a minute and figure out what happened and what the consequences are for us, 30 years on. Reese Erlich is with us.

Thom Hartmann: Greetings my friends, patriots, lovers of democracy, truth and justice, believers in peace, freedom and the American way. Thom Hartmann here with you. Our telephone number 866-987-THOM, our website ThomHartmann.com. Everything there from podcasts to the free chat room, free live chat room and message boards, you can create your own blogs, all kinds of cool stuff.

Thom Hartmann: Okay, Julian Assange is sitting in a 19th century prison with 1600 other prisoners, apparently because he committed a crime, actually because he’s wanted for questioning in regard to a crime in Sweden that isn’t a crime anywhere else in the world as far as I can tell. Naomi Wolf on the line with us.

Thom Hartmann: Well it may or may not be big news. The headline is that “House Democrats Reject Tax Deal!” Well, yes and no. The house democrats have not voted on the floor of the House of Representatives on the tax deal. They had a caucus meeting this morning and they took a vote, a straw vote, and basically said no to the president. But it’s a non-binding vote. So my, you know, I don’t know what conventional wisdom is.

A new government report released yesterday shows health care spending in 2009 increased at its lowest rate in 50 years – only 4%. While a slow increase seems like a good thing – the truth behind the numbers is troubling. Health care spending is down because people who’ve lost their jobs can’t afford to see doctors anymore. 6.3 million people lost their employee-sponsored health insurance in 2009 – causing 59% of patients i