I love the blog. Great post. It is very true, people must learn how to learn before they can learn. lol i know it sounds funny but its very true. . . heti

NSA Spying ~ My math isn't too good so please correct me if I'm off a tad. The way I see it, we have in the USA a population of roughly 314 Million people. Now around 12 years ago we lost 3000 people to terrorists. How many since then? Lets say a generous estimate of another 1000. (Actually, I'm sure that's an exaggeration. But lets go with it anyway;-) So we have 4000 victims in 12 years. The percentage of the population that has been victimized by terrorists then comes to 0.00127%. But that is over 12 years! If we then divide that by 12, we get 0.0001058% of the population casualties of terrorism average per year.

I don't know, maybe my calculator needs batteries or my numbers are off. This just doesn't make any sense. If I understand my calculations correctly, the logic our Government is presenting us with, is that we have to abolish our Constitutional Right to Privacy for 100% of 314 Million citizens in order to improve the chances of saving roughly 333 lives a year? Thats less than 1 person a day! Who are these people and why are their lives more important than the Constitution? Where were these important people when we fought the Revolutionary War, or any war ever since. Obviously, they are more important than anything this country stands for. More people than that die every day from crossing the street!

440,000 people each year die from cigarettes. Why is the Government protecting their Constitutional right to chose to smoke? Each year roughly 32,000 people are killed in car crashes and over 2,000,000 are injured. Why is the Government protecting their Constitutional right to chose to own and drive a car? In the US roughly 30,000 people each year die of gunshot wounds. Why is the Government protecting their Constitutional right to bear arms?

The answer is obvious. The Government isn't the least bit concerned about the lives of any of its people or the Constitution. The Devil is in it's inconsistency to do anything logically, keep it's word, or hold fast onto any values. The very idea that our Government would ask us all to sacrifice the one aspect of the Constitution meant to protect us all from the Government to maybe save the lives of 333 of us a year, when it allows hundreds of thousands of us to kill ourselves for completely preventable reasons shows beyond a doubt that there is a nefarious influence at work that must be identified and removed from its position of power at all costs. This is the real enemy of our Democracy and our way of life and Edward Snowden knows this and is leading the charge to do something about it. We must all support his cause. If Snowden fails, we all fail.

Of course, this is a very conservative, hypothetical analysis!

Edward Snowden is the real deal and this explains the MSM vitriol - he had the evidence thus, unlike previous NSA whistle blowers, the MSM cannot afford to ignore him.

I notice Thom Hartmann does not mention that it is a Democratic President who is cracking down on whistle blowers using "anti Spy" legislation. There is no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. The corporatists are in charge and they have two colours - the Red and the Blue.

I hope that Eric Snowden finds work in Russia and then, quietly, leaves to go to another country where he will be able to make a comfortable and safe life for himself. I do hope that he DOES NOT come back to the US because we all know that what he has waiting for him here is the same type of inhumane treatment to which Bradley Manning has been and will continue to be subjected. DO NOT COME HOME, ERIC.

As for Bradley, I wish that he had done the same thing. And for all of the luddites who think Eric should have come home to stand up for what he did, get a life. We all know what happens to whistleblowers in this country and it ain't pretty. Go to the "proper authorities?" Give me a break. He would immediately been taken into custody, placed incognito and subjected to inhumane treatment for his honesty and NOT treated as a whistleblower SHOULD be treated. We have see it too many times when someone comes forward with invaluable information for we, the people, only to be fired from their jobs, humilitated and generally - even in civilian life - found trumped up charges placed against them after which they go to jail for some trumped up charge and their lives are ruined.

Eric has a chance now to begin life our of this country and start again. I am sure that he can do so and hope that he will take advantage of that opportunity. Good on ya, Eric.

DANNEMARC, I'll make the reservations...8 o'clock okay with you!? I'll have Mrs. Watts bring her switch, she'll keep everyone in check, and from talking out of turn!!! ;)

Why isn't anyone talking about Pvt Bradley Mannning???

If civil lawsuits must show damages to be considered for adjudication, the government should be required to show damages in the cases of both Manning and Snowden before the charges should be tried. The projected, publishied as far as I know, of the NSA installation is somewhaere around $15B. Since 2007 the annual costs are above $1.2B per year. I haven't heard of any benefits above a few hundred dollars U.S for all those expenditures. The costs to society in the killilng of innocent victims by either intent, blood lust or accident does much more harm to the American image than the damages to the military used as an excuse to keep such criminal offenses secret or even confidential. The perpetrators or authorizers, regardless of their official position in governement, should be prosecuted in International courts for Crimes against Humanity for each person killed in these disclosures. I have seen such abuse of the power to declare letters or communications confidental or higher merely to protect some influential individuals from embarrassment. This abuse of such power is more damaging than the publishing.

Truth, justice and liberty ; if the government does not honor this within itself and its citizens it cannot honor it internationally. There are fringe elements within and without the government that are in control. Our challenge is for all of us to recognize the danger in that.

If the Dems were in power? We have a Democrat president don't we. And he started his first term when he had the majority and the first thing he did was give away the store to the Republicans. Why? Because he wanted to show that he was willing to compromise...to get along...yeah, right! That was the lame excuse. Perhaps if the Democrats had been tough and strove to take back some of the things we lost during the Republican years, the voters might just have voted more Democrats into office. Voters showed then that they may as well let the Republicans grab the seats because they realized, then, that the ineffective Democrats didn't deserve to be re-elected...even if it meant letting a Republican in. I am not buying it that if the Democrats were in power things would be different...they are sell outs...they are just as much owned by the ruling elite as are the Republicans. The Democrats will sponsor certain bills that they know darn well will not have a chance of passing...it's all for show...they are not fooling anyone. Their actions, or rather inactions (they don't fight a mean and tough game as the Republicans do...because they are all in it together...working for the ruling elite) continuously help the wealthy class and continuously stomp on the rest of us. The Democrat politicians know that they can continue to fool most of their constituency based on the fear factor of a Republican in office. They don't really represent the majority of Americans.

As Thom pointed out in today's show...people are actually dying because of "Austerity". This is a real class war, and many people are actually dying because of it, that the rich have been waging against the rest of us for several decades now. And they have been using the Democrats to do it. The Democrats sell false hope for change...but it is a lie! They are part of the illusion! Trickle down politics doesn't work any more than a trickle down economy. It's fallacious. And that appears to be acceptable to some people..the expectation of getting a trickle down of some insignificant wins for the people, occasionally, while the rich continue to receive the lions share of everything. The real solution is not continuing to vote for the same old liars and sellouts...you have to do something radically different...whether that is taking a chance and voting for a third party candidate or getting way more active in the streets. Obama, and the Democrat party is showing it's true colors when they lock-step with the Republicans on going after whistle blowers like they have been. They show their true colors when they continuously sell out to the Republicans over everything else.

Stop drinking the blue, heavily dosed with red, cool-aid! It is poisoning us all!

Just as the rest of the world is right about single payer health insurance, it's also right about concern over the NSA spy program and our pursuit of a war crimes and money laundering whistleblower. You gotta admit, the Republican push for privatization really bit em on the ass this time. Snowden may be the most wanted at the moment, but could it be the info he has is going to place his pursuers in that very seat soon? Will we finally find out where that 18 billion in shrink wrapped buckaroos ended up?

Well Kend, aren't you holier than thou. You immediately jumped from CONTRACEPTION to Abortion. There's a difference buddy.

And they won't stop allowing Monsanto GMO foods, contamination of our food supplies, and prevent these plants, like weeds, from overrunning natural crops and depleting soil nutrients, No they won't even label these foods to let us know where they put them, and they put them in our baby foods and infant formula (Gerbers, kelloggs cereals) to poison our babies and toddlers, and us.. The congress won't stop the spraying of pesticides and fungicides that have already wiped out 70 percent of honeybees needed to pollinate food crops-- this will cause mass starvation and force us to eat that patented artificially genetic engineered GMO food and other nutritionally inferior foods that we don't control or like. Stop spraying these chemicals,you selfish greedy corporations, you killed off and wiped out almost all the midwest USA butterflies and now you are wiping out the bees we need for food.We don't want your stupid scientifically designed artificial pollinators!! Leave our bees, butterflies, and our food and water alone