Recent comments

  • The rich just keep getting richer...   11 years 38 weeks ago

    I have somebody that would probably be interesting for an interview, or you might want to use it on you’re The good, The bad, and the extremely bad. Or maybe conversations with great minds. His name is Dr. Geoff Williams. Five years ago, Geoff Williams ditched his lucrative career as a plastic surgeon and began spending his time and money on strangers half a world away. Although I do not know Dr. Williams personally but we both knew Dr. Mike Jensen, Dr. Jensen introduced me to Dr. Williams. I knew Dr. Jensen pretty good. They could have been carbon copies. Here’s two articles that you could read, one of them is the Idaho press, the other one is Journal Gazette. They are good articles that shows there are some doctors who care about people instead of profit. If you decide to use this story I would appreciate it if you let me know, with your writing ability you will give this justice, and probably will help Dr. Williams to. In my opinion not only your audience but America should know about this to.

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 38 weeks ago

    What's there to get, 2950-10k!?!? The name pretty much sums it up; Assault Riffle.
    Now if what you mean to say is that you do not understand why anyone feels the need to own an Assault Riffle...You'll have to talk to pro gun people; especially those who own Assault Riffles. However, I have a feeling that no matter their answer...It won't be good enough for you.

    I am very well aware of Australia's Gun Laws, as well as their superior Universal Health Care System. I have family that has lived in Australia for the past 40 years. Three of them are American and maintain dual citizenship.
    Though I agree with your concern for quilling the gun violence here in the U.S...The U.S. is not Australia, and by that I mean that you cannot cherry pick other countries policies without understanding and embracing their philosophies as a whole.
    Australia's philosophy to life is based on living a healthy, happy, and prosperous life, and by prosperous I mean beyond annual income.
    Australia ranks among the top 5 countries out of 30 for mandating payed time off from work. The U.S. doesn't even place. In Australia the minimum payed time off is 15 working days + all nationally recognized holidays. My sister who works in Child & Familey Services receives 35 payed days off + all national holidays per year. My brother, who works in tourism receives 20 days + all national holidays off per year. Though Austrailians pay more in taxes, their wages on average are higher, more intune with the cost of living, than the United States, they have affordable Education and their Universal Health Care System is one that also includes preventative care, maternaty leave, and mental health care. They do have private Hospitals but the majority of Australians don't go to them. They have perfected "socialized medicine"...In other words the anti-Univerasl Health Insurance propaganda horror stories we hear about, i.e. having to wait 6+ months for treatment are just...Well..."Anti-Universal health Insurance" and not true.

    The point is, is that Australians in general, are about embracing life, living life, and respecting life. Americans...Not so much. Our "Cheap Throw Away Commercial Culture" and its ideology of "by any means necessary...The ends justify the means...Profit before people" is an undeniable testimate to our own demise.

    It's not just the guns...More it's the greedy unhealthy attitude of Americans in general.

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 38 weeks ago

    By the way, did anyone notice the strange "glare" in the President's eyes during the speech? Not to say that he appeared, "possessed by evil" as much as he appeared unusually and extremely angry--almost enraged? Hard to say exactly; but, for sure his demeanor just didn't seem right. Perhaps it was just my imagination?

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 38 weeks ago

    http://www.takeoverworld.info/grandchessboard.html

    You know, the President stopped over in Sweden, on his way to the G20 Summit and his talk with the Communist KGB guy, Putin. Zbigniew Brzezinski's son, Dr. Mark Brzezinski is now the Ambassador to Sweden. There's something rotten in Denmark...

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 38 weeks ago

    http://www.google.com/m?q=the+grand+game+chessboard

    Highlight & search^ [elites need to control "greater eurasia" in order to have world domination into the 21st century. Seig Heil!]

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 38 weeks ago

    Thanks Palindromedary, Sandlewould & DeAnneM. I can't wait to get Kevin Ryan's new book "Another Nineteen."

    And thank you, Thom, for hosting this blog.

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 38 weeks ago

    @Kend

    "same old poop"

    You said it. The entire world was fooled by Obama - he was the perfect corporatist puppet. His links to the banksters are now legendary and methinks he is about to put Larry Summers in charge of the private bankster money printing presses, i.e. the Fed. The same man who helped fuel the financial crisis...

    http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-and-the-secret-end-game-memo/

    My prediction is that Obama will get a job with Goldman Sachs - just like that lesser corporate peon, Tony Blair, now works for JPMorgan.

  • Has Pres. Obama made the case for a military strike in Syria?   11 years 38 weeks ago

    American exceptionalism:

    international crimes are criminal except when the criminals are American

    Vladimir Putin... NYT op-ed guest:

    a Cheshire bear

    2013 Obama fail:

    the fascism that the progressive POTUS made so seductively fashionable again, in his 1st term, quickly fell out of fashion in his 2nd term, when he prematurely ejaculated while advocating another punishing war of aggression, without having first engaged in any foreplay to stimulate the public's passion... not even an implied promise to progressively spread some share of his desired Syrian petrol pipeline war's pillage around down to the indentured (aka "middle") class

    Bashir al-Assad Regime:

    legacy government of French colonial era empowered Alawite Arab minority, which has in its end-game effectively behaved like Israeli sepoys... demolishing Syria, conveniently clearing and cleansing new ground for the insatiably invasive, ever expansionist Israelis to eventually settle more facts upon
    ______________________________
    The APT: American Political Terms

    www.chenangogreens.org :

  • Monday 1 April '13 show notes   11 years 39 weeks ago

    I don't understand.
    Monday 1 April '13 show notes

    Submitted by SueN on 9. September 2013 - 6:29

    Where are all the show notes since April???

  • Has Pres. Obama made the case for a military strike in Syria?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    Through all of this, I never once heard President Obama say he sought a diplomatic solution to Syria's gas stockpile. It should be noted, the new Iran president Rouhani had expressed revulsion when he was informed of the gas attack. Being Rouhani was elected on a moderate platform, I would think he would have been approachable to intercede with Assad to bring Assad to the bargaining table regarding his gas stockpile. Now we see the Russians have beat President Obama to the negotiating table with Assad in tow.

    A military person (admiral, I believe --didn't catch his title or name) said President Obama's plan to shell Syria would cost a half-billion dollars per week. This is a huge sum for which I have not once heard how we are going to pay for this little war. Are we going to put it on the tab as President Bush did? What more do we have to give up to pay for this venture?

    President Obama said Syria's gas canisters are a threat to us as a nation yet I fail to see how a gas canister buried in a Syrian stronghold is a threat to us. As far as I know, Syria doesn't have the rocket power to lob a few our way. And where did Syria get their gas supply? I know we gave Saddam his supply which he used to exterminate Kurds and also Iranians along his borders -- 100,000 of them killed or maimed according to Iran. Yet we did nothing....why? Could it be because we supplied the gas?

    I think Noam Chomsky gave an excellent account of our government's past behaviour in propping up despots as evil as Assad and keeping them in power on Democracy Now! last evening. Quite a litany.

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    If one READS the speech, it is clear Obama takes the position that there is no need to sell his war on Syria because he maintains he can have it without anyone's approval! The part about going to Congress is spoken in an in-your-face insult -- and going to Congress is only a P.R. ploy to make it APPEAR that this is still a representative government in a democratic republic. A RUDE JOKE, in my view.

    The following two paragraphs are from the transcript of that part of Obama's speech (in brackets are my comments)--

    This is not a world we should accept. This is what's at stake. And that is why, after careful deliberation, I determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to respond to the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike. [OBAMA HERE INDICATES HE WILL DEPLOY HIS 600 CRUISE MISSILES AND UNTOLD BOMBS ON THE HEADS OF THE SYRIAN PEOPLE. HE'S INDICATING HE DOES NOT REQUIRE ANYONE'S APPROVAL.] The purpose of this strike would be to deter Assad from using chemical weapons, to degrade his regime's ability to use them and to make clear to the world that we will not tolerate their use. That's my judgment as commander in chief.

    But I'm also the president of the world's oldest constitutional democracy. So even though I possessed the authority to order military strikes, I believed it was right, in the absence of a direct or imminent threat to our security, to take this debate to Congress. I believe our democracy is stronger when the president acts with the support of Congress, and I believe that America acts more effectively abroad when we stand together. [HE INDICATES HERE THAT HE IS SEEKING APPROVAL ONLY FOR THE APPEARANCES OF DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, BUT NOT THE SUBSTANCE OF THAT REPUBLIC. DISGUSTING. THIS IS LIKE AN EPISODE OF "KEEPING UP APPEARANCES", WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER PRONOUNCES HER NAME 'BOUQUET' INSTEAD OF 'BUCKET' -- EMPTY, MEANINGLESS GIBBERISH. EXCEPT PREZ OBABA IS AIMING HIS GIBBERISH AT THE UNIFORMED AND THE IMBEDDED MEDIA FLUNKIES.]

    - See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/nora/blog/2013/09/obama-using-same-old-imperialist-template-speech-transcript-link#comment-230493

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    Not impressed by Obama's speech. So I think we are on the same page about that.

    Obama filled his speech with misinformation and lies, evidently seeking to give this misinformation and lies the credibility of the Presidential Office. Disgusting.

    This speech -- full of JINGOISM to encourage Americans to join in the war-mongering -- is as sickening as Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech in which he bizarrely promoted the "just war" philosophy!

    What I saw was a free market corporatist selling war using the same template that has been used by war profiteers for generations. More about that template here: http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/nora/blog/2013/09/obama-using-same-old...

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    batteredup ~ As the old saying goes--people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

    Obama's speech did make a good case for military action...

    That is, for the rest of the world against the United States.

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    I was going to reference the same point and ask, when do we start bombing ourselves?

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    Not at all! It was a very poor, unbelievable, and contradictory speech.

  • Diplomacy works.   11 years 39 weeks ago

    Yes, diplomacy works, but i'm not at all sure America knows how to conduct diplomacy anymore. We are used to dictating terms, and, if the other side doesn't accept, we resort to threats and/or bombing. There is still much hard bargaining left to do, and whether we have the patience and perseverance for it, remains to be seen.

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    Yes, Clownes! A&E for 911 Truth

    From Peter B Collins website, an interview with Richard Gage and Pam Senzee on Building 7. And the campaign and website: rethink911.org

    "Gage is a tireless advocate for a scientific approach to the study of the World Trade Center site, and describes himself as a Reagan Republican who grew skeptical of the 9/11 story after hearing an interview with David Ray Griffin and founded Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which now has over 2,000 endorsers. Pamela Senzee is an activist who bicycled cross country in 2012 to educate people about these issues, and is coordinating a media campaign for Re-Think 9/11, which is supported by a wide coalition.

    "Gage recaps the critical factors of the unexplained collapse of WTC building 7 at 5:20 pm on 9/11, which was ignored by the 9/11 Commission and the media. And we discuss how people resist believing the clear evidence because it leads to unthinkable concepts of how it could have happened, and who caused it. In particular, Rachel Maddow at MSNBC ridicules the skeptics of the 9/11 story and characterizes objective investigation into this taboo topic as “crazy”."

    Also: be sure to visit truth-teller Sibel Edmonds' Boiling Frogs Post to read her article "The Little Terriorists vs the Real Big Terrorists."

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    Listening to Thom now. I can't believe he still believes that Ben Laden was responsible for the events of 911. Please Thom interview Richard Gage of Architect and Engineers for 911 truth(www.ae911truth.org). The 911 truth must be revealed otherwise the attacks on MiddleEast nations and Arabs and Muslims will continue.

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago
    Quote 2950-10K:DAnneMarc: I don't disagree, but good luck getting the funding for treatment of the mentally ill. Here in New York our governor has been busy privatizing and union busting in this category. His initiatives have caused the release from secure facilities of many problematic individuals back into our communities. There has already been a murder in NYC as a direct result of this recent trend.

    2950-10K ~ I'm so sorry to hear that. I though even the Republicans have wised up about that Ronald Wilson (666) Reagan spawn disaster by now. Like the big apple needs more "problematic" individuals on the streets. Bloomberg should be ashamed of himself. Obviously he holds his citizenry in contempt. He should have to take a walk through central park every evening unescorted. I hope you manage to vote that fool out of office the next chance you get. I guess we still have a long way to go. Watch your back; and, take care!

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    President Obama made a statement, albeit a shallow statement, for military intervention. What is more impressive is the outstanding intervention of the progressive movement to move President Obama to seek negotiations. I like Rep. Alan Grayson's statements that we progressives had a great influenece on this outcome and it's timeline...

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    DAnneMarc: I don't disagree, but good luck getting the funding for treatment of the mentally ill. Here in New York our governor has been busy privatizing and union busting in this category. His initiatives have caused the release from secure facilities of many problematic individuals back into our communities. There has already been a murder in NYC as a direct result of this recent trend. It's all about tax cuts for those who don't need them, union busting, and really just a Teabag austerity mentality. The rich don't have enough yet!

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    How can we continue with the massive cost of killing people in other countries, when we can't even afford programs like meals on wheels at home? Diplomacy is much less expensive and it's the right thing to do.

    Nationalization of energy would end most of these killing for profit problems.

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago
    Quote 2950-10K:MMmmNACHOS, DAnneMarc: In reply to yesterday.......After a 1996 mass shooting, Australia passed gun laws that have prevented anymore mass shootings since......look it up.

    Very well!

    Australian Gun Laws:

    Quote Wikipedia:State laws govern the possession and use of firearms in Australia. These laws were largely aligned under the 1996 National Firearms Agreement (NFA). Anyone wishing to possess or use a firearm must have a Firearms Licence and, with some exceptions, be over the age of 18. Owners must have secure storage for their firearms.

    Before someone can buy a firearm, he or she must obtain a Permit To Acquire. The first permit has a mandatory 28-day delay before it is first issued. In some states (e.g., Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales), this is waived for second and subsequent firearms of the same class. For each firearm a "Genuine Reason" must be given, relating to pest control, hunting, target shooting, or collecting. Self-defense is not accepted as a reason for issuing a license, even though it may be legal under certain circumstances to use a legally held firearm for self-defense.[2]

    Each firearm in Australia must be registered to the owner by serial number. Some states allow an owner to store or borrow another person's registered firearm of the same category.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia

    2950-10K ~ I totally agree! Great idea! I thought I said that already. What I also said was this will not solve the problem in the United States. The United States and Australia are apples and oranges. We can enact this legislation in this country--and I do believe we should--however, without addressing the fact that we have untreated severely mentally ill people walking the streets, and a raging black market overflowing in cheap firearms of all kinds, innocent people will still be at risk. It's a simple fact!

    Rearranging our priorities to take care of our ill people, and restricting the manufacture of guns, along with the gun control legislation of which you speak would make me feel alot safer. Afterall, we register and license cars don't we?

    Let's go ahead and do it. Afterall, it is the responsible thing to do. But lets also address all the other issues at the same time.

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    MMmmNACHOS, DAnneMarc: In reply to yesterday.......After a 1996 mass shooting, Australia passed gun laws that have prevented anymore mass shootings since......look it up. That said, another intended point was.....Why does Obama think he can take on middle eastern problems in support of big oil when he can't even temper the gun manufacturers and their lobby known as the NRA here at home.

    By the way, I grew up with guns, still own a small cannon which I fire on July 4th, among other things. I live in a rural setting where they say gun control is the ability to hit your target. One of my neighbors comes home drunk at two in the morning and often feels the urge at that time to discharge his assault weapon in his backyard, when he's not in jail that is. Hell it's like being in Syria for just a moment in the middle of the night. Anyway, I just don't get the assault weapons thing, sorry.

  • Did Pres. Obama make the case for military action?   11 years 39 weeks ago

    Kend ~ You're 100% right. You should listen to the Noam Chomsky interview linked to above. Basically Chomsky says that the U.S. is responsible for breaking UN international law every time it uses force, or threatens to use force against another country. There is a reason all countries are prohibited from using or threatening to use military force. That is why the law is in the UN charter. The UN has failed to hold the US accountable for multiple violations of this international law.

    Today, a UN resolution was reached that finds all sides in the Syrian conflict guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. A little tidbit conveniently left out of President Obama's speech. No military attack is going to remedy this situation.

    http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/09/201391181352433623.html

    In fact, any military attack by the US is only going to make the situation worse; as well as, pose the risk for WWIII. We must step aside in this matter and stop violating international law. We have to let the UN determine the course of action in this matter; or, like you've suggested, what are they good for?

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