Recent comments
ADHD: Hunter in a Farmer's World
Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Join Thom for his new twice-weekly email newsletters on ADHD, whether it affects you or a member of your family.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
What about companies like Dish Satelite Services? I have Internet and TV through Dish. If I was to start an Internet company I would be sending my content out through Dish Services and yes, the more data I send the more itr costs.
ISPs Want To Destroy The Internet: Spread This Message So We Can Stop Them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37nfG8m0XzQ
The following quote is for Sue...
"I'm not very hopeful that humanity can act en masse to address what are now truly global problems that require a new way of thinking. As Einstein said when nuclear weapons were created: "Everything's changed save the way we think."
I think we need to change the way we think to address these global problems. Will it happen? Maybe kicking and screaming. My friend, the writer Cormac McCarthy, told me once: "I'm a pessimist, but that's no reason to be gloomy." In a sense, that's my attitude."
From here
Thom is a master at trying to point humanity in the right direction, but it is like the old saying "You can lead a horse to water...".
Peoople fear change and the change they fear the most is the change that threatens them.
Back when Bush was elected for a second term the thought of a black democrat President was pretty much unthinkable. Then we had the mortgage meltdown (Thom has another fancy word for it) and everything changed. People lost their jobs by the millions (myself included) and trillions in working family homeowner equity vanished. For other the roofs over thier heads vanished. This juggernaut of financial destruction opened the eyes of many Americans who would vote for those with the big money, just to keep their status quo and small piece of the pie.
As to the topic, i can't argue that it seems awfully suspicious that Netflix (who I love to watch) didn't put up a fight. However, they have a good thing going and rather than wade through costly and lengthy court battles they just flashed the cash.
I think net nuetrality still may have its day in court... literally.
Definately a good start. It was the reduction of military expenditure that allowed Clinton to balance the budget.
As to threats, I think we need to focus at home on wack jobs like Ted Nugent.
The FCC, like the FDA, has been reduced to a impotent figurehead. "Grow the economy and jobs", Mr. Pai? You guys can't even do the job your agency was designed for. Pathetic.
I may have misunderstood the question on this poll.
My answer was no the expansion of Medicaid in the affodable health care act is far too small to make it a viable talking poit.
HOWEVER... if by expansion you mean expanding it further to the public that are just above the poverty level, then absolutely it should be trumpeted loudly. As I mentioned above you have to make double the poverty level to afford the same level of health care enjoyed by Medicaid recipients. If you take the deductible (8000) add on 12 monthly premiums (40x12=4800) then factor in the copays (10,000x20%=2000) you have 15,000 dollars! then figure the higher taxes you pay and it is easy to see why many people will choose to not work or stay under the poverty level to keep Medicaid. The easiest way to fix this is to add medicaid to the options availible to the public making more than poverty level at a reasonable price.
I can already see the insurance companies beginning to froth at the mouth.
Excellent posts, everyone! Suze, I couldn't have said it better. - AIW
I agree with Thom! We just witnessed the morphing of the neutral Internet into cable TV - pay to play. Just recently Time Warner (do you remember when Time and Warner were two different companies?). Blacked out CBS until they paid the ransom?
By comparison, it would be analogous to Comcast taking over the airwaves holding the world ransom to pay - or be blacked out.
They bought our prisons
And enslaved a generation.
They bought our military
and took away our nationalism.
They bought our roadways
and the rich speed by in the fast lanes,
They have bought our radio stations
and homogenized culture
and turned political speech into greed and hate.
They bought our schools
and taken away belonging to a community.
They bought their competitors
and reduced our lives to working
in their corporate stores.
Not only is this "pay to play" internet going to make it harder to start a small business using the web, but it will invariably lead to censorship of one kind or another. The ones with the most money will be the ones most insulated from criticism and safe from competition. Those who want new ideas, variety or change will have nowhere to go.
Why can't Americans fight harder against these interests that can only see the world as a source of profit for a wealthy few who weild enormous power? Why have so many of us swallowed the idea that anything a "government" does is bad, inept, and more expensive? I am tired of hearing that any effort toward programs for the public good or open to everyone regardless of financial status are examples of evil "socialism" and need to be privatized. I am angry that the right wing has spent years trying to convince us that socialism and Nazism are the same thing, just because Hitler used "socialist" in the name of his party. (NEVER trust the descriptions people or countries give themselves ; since they do so mostly to sound appealing or benign.) Read about the Night of the Long Knives, and the treatise of Mussolini on his ideal form of government, or Gen. Pinochet's privatization of almost everything in Chile; it will become very clear that those who MOST hate "socialism", aka public ownership, are those who believe in its opposite ideology - fascism.
THE more I research labor history the more I am seeing a slippery slope return to the days of KING COAL -
when the coal corporations, owned local, state, and federal officials
who used local, state, and federal resources against the workers and unions to protect the coal companies.
with corporate media controlling the nightly news -
with corporate personhood giving corporations all the benefits of a human being but with little or no responsibilities -
with citizens united allowing corporations and the rich unlimited contributions to political parties -
with the loss of net neutrality controlling what we are able to connect to on the internet by how much we are able to pay -
with the war on unions and the middle class -
I fear I am seeing a slippery slope return to when corporations owned the local, state, and federal authorities, and the general population - the working people - returning to being nothing more than slaves to the corporations and their greed.
Mr. Rockford, I respectfully disagree. The dead person isn't the one paying the taxes; it's the heirs. And since this law applies only to those inheriting multi-millions or more, why should you even care? The less tax the ultra-rich pay, the more we end up paying, and frankly I am tired of it. They can afford it; I can't. So they can just pay up and shut up. We've much more pressing issues to deal with than this. - AIW
Comcast and TWC in no instance serve the same zip codes according to NPR. Just coincidence, not collusion?
The Pentagon announced today plans for a remarkable reduction in force due to budget considerations. Given the extent of current military privatization, we will soon have a corporate/oligarchic controlled army that will vastly outnumber that supported by our? government. To what use could such an arrangement be put?
The ACA was written by the Health INSURERS..............so no wonder it has turned out as a SWEETHEART Deal.
I bet they also gave the line: " You can keep your plan if you like it " as a MISINFORMATION trick to damage the President. Obviously someone must have suggested that line.
You wonder why the ENTOURAGE of the President were so ASLEEP as NOT to CORRECT him after having said it once or twice. How come RAHM's Emaanuel brother the Dr did not CORRECT the President./???
WELL , because NO ONE really Cares about helping the President.
As for your comment Mr King, some of the things you have written are true. But you see , the Health Insurers gave themselves a GREAT DEAL the DEDUCTIBLES are HORRENDOUS.
It is sad that the SMALL BUSINESSes ofUSA did not have the INTELLIGENCE and FORESIGHT to actually ask the DEMS to put either a PUBLIC OPTION , or better still GO MEDICARE for ALL,or SINGLE Payer .
Unfortunately , BIZ community could not OVERCOME their hatred of GOV to see how the GOV could have taken away the BURDEN of HEALTH Benefits for employees.
All the rest of the great countries in the World take care of the Health care of Citizens so that BUSINESS is FREE from this burden.
Perhaps someitmes People ofUSA should realize all that ALL the PROGRAMS Democratic Party has to help People , are really PRO BIZ ........because when People are better off , Businesses are Better off too.
GM would not have been bankrupt if their CEOs had supported HILLARY in 1993 ......instead of all ganging up on her.
So, Now we are at the same spot...........iunstead of KILLING ACA ..........let us FIX it for the sake of ALL by ADDING a PUBLIC OPTION so to rein in the Health Insurers HIGH deductibles.
SHFabin I have to agree. Everytime our justice system caves into mega corporations we lose a bit more freedpm and encourage proliferation of injustice.
Yes, "pay for play" has been increasingly implemented for years. This has played a powerful role in pushing the US even further behind the advanced nations as millions have been pushed off the Internet already. With this generation so deeply divided, middle class against the rest of us, I don't see how it's possible to have a united push-back against this broad agenda.
I happen to be a recipient of Medicaid, for the first time as a result of the new rule and as a result probably know more about it that 99% of the population. First off, the only people who will benefit from the expansion are those making less than 11000 income (poverty level) a year (here in Illinois) and are single with no kids. That demographic is so small it should not be considered as a talking point. Another reason is because half the States said no to it. I will no longer be eligible for the Medicaid soon, since I will soon have an income, but from what I have gathered the Medicaid expansion is so limited it will only cover people that would normally go to free clinics anyway. The conservatives have a very valid way of badmouthing Obamacare and that is the enormous deductibles. these deductibles, which run into the several thousands, have to be paid before the insurance pays a dime. Then the co-pays are 40% 30% and 20% and on top of that are the monthly premiums. The medicaid for those at or below the poverty line is good, but then the cost of coverage is prohibitive. There should be a sliding scale for medicaid after the poverty line, because the way things are set up, you really do need to double your income from the poverty line level just to break even on health care.
i live in Florida, & the state is divided into 2 completely different areas. North FL is the South- conservative, Republican, redneck, etc. South FL is the North- liberal, Democratic. If South FL were its own state, we would have 2 Democratic Senators & a majority of Dem congressional reps. As it is now, South FL is ruled by the redneck Republicans in Tallahassee, which is an alternative universe where all the crazy laws we are famous for originate, & we have to live w/ them. If we were our own state, we would not have to live with the "stand your ground" gun law that lets people get away w/ murder. We wouldn't have to live w/ gerrymandering that has given the
GOP a stranglehold on the state. We would pass stronger environmental protections, living wage ordinances...we would be free of the Tallahassee crazies & life would be, at least, better in South FL. North FL would be just like Alabama or Mississippi, because they wouldn't have all the tax money they're getting from us now.
, The FCC is another watch dog agency that fails us! Recently appointed commissioner Ajit Pai, upon taking office, gave a speech informing that the agency will help to grow the econopmy and jobs. Apparently, when appointed he wasn't informed as to what the agency was established for. I remind us of the power of the media, made very evident by big business purchasing it all. I remind us of the overwhelming number of neighbors seeking change. I remind us that the last significant political change occurred when our news media was in the hands of thousands of citizens, rather than that of a handful of industrialists whose control presents flagrant conflicts of interest, and the calls for reform were fostered by news media!
Anyway Thom- to answer you directly: no, I don't think Social Security is safe. It's only safe "for now". The thieves are determined; they're not giving up. They'll get it eventually. That's what thieves do, just take and take and take... Who gives a flip whose earned benefits these are?! All for the taking.
Thanks to Reaganomics ad nauseam, it's a thief's paradise out there. Meanwhile Candidate Obama vowed to protect Social Security from Wall Street pirates; unfortunately President Obama has had it on the chopping block since the day after the election. We get to sacrifice more hunks out of our raggedy-ass safety net, all for President Obama's noble crusade, his #1 Priority: bipartisanship at any cost! Long as that cost doesn't come out of the Pentagon's hide, or the Corporate Billionaire Welfare Queens' hide, or Obama's hide. But ours is fair game. So come on y'all, we'll be gettin' screwed anyway... might as well lay back and enjoy it! - Aliceinwonderland
The fact that Obama offerred to accept cutting of Social Security benefits is beyond unacceptable.
With wealth and income disparity at all time highs cutting Social Security is sticking it to the poor, while coddling the rich. How about taxing the rich with New Deal income brackets to make up for the upcoming demand? With babyboomers retiring, something has to be done, but Social Security is far below the poverty line and the only thing many will have to depend on in later years.
I don't trust Kend's figures - or much of anything he claims - but saying they are correct it makes no difference. There is nothing that rightfully entitles the 10% to such a disproportionate share of the society's wealth as they would award themselves. That they were able to write the laws and official policies to make it so is only their criminal hijacking of government.
The 70% is part of the just compensation to those of us who don't own business but who have to work for someone else for the hard work we do making them rich. What they don't pay in wages they pay (or should pay) in taxes. If they refuse to do either, as they are now, and get away with it, you have what's happening now, the concentration of wealth, the destruction of the middle class and the pauperization of working people.
"Mr. banger" says Kend, "the 10% pay 70% of the taxes". Really! If you're talking about Canada, I'm in no position to refute your claim, as I know nothing about Canadian tax policy. But if you mean the USA, that's hogwash. Bunk. Sheer fiction! - Aliceinwonderland
Mr banger the 10% pay 70% of the taxes. That is more than there fair share and I don't hear any one complaining. how much more do you suggest.
DHBranski & PD - You guys are spot-on, hittin' bulls' eyes today like there's no tomorrow. Whether there is or isn't, we're not going to shut up, give up and cowtow to these goddam pigs. We're too smart, too onto them and their agenda to let 'em censor us or cut us off from one another forever. If we have to, we'll find other ways of getting and staying connected. We don't have to agree on everything; just two things, mainly: who (or what) the enemy is, and secondly, what must be done to ward off this fascist takeover of civilization as we know it. Because it extends well beyond U.S. borders, threatening societies and cultures throughout the world.
Our corporatized government, Wall Street and the Pentagon are the real terrorists. They are the Goliaths of the 21st Century, the true source of much (if not all) this war, plundering, upheaval and strife, worldwide. Between environmental ruin and all the wars, it's gotten down to the wire for humanity. What are we gonna do about it? If we could only get unified on those two things, the source of the problem and our strategy to counter it, we'd be way more effective in our efforts to beat back all that threatens our autonomy, freedom, dignity... even our lives. - Aliceinwonderland