President Obama just imposed limits on mercury pollution. Why would he destroy Social Security?

Absolutley right-this is THE attack on Social Security and it seems noone on the left really knows that. It is just the same left-right fight nonsense.

Is there a new version of "Christmas Carol" ? Dickens would love this material.

3Mile was a none event that was controlled becuz of pump failure. We do not have 3 headed Holsteins walking around as nothing harmed the environment. You apparently enjoy all the carbon emissions from the coal plants that should be replaced by clean, none polluting nuclear plants. France gets 80% of their power from nuclear plants. They are laughing at the Germans who have this dream of shutting down some of their plants. Their solution is to buy power from Frances nuclear power supplied grid. Do go out hug your tree hard untill the leaves fall off.

Your child may be a Communist (terrorist)!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Op-CCH77c0&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Temp staffing, the scourge of the American worker. I know exactly what you guest is referring to, my current job is working as a temp in a city position. I actually interned at this city for about a year and after I gave up on expecting any permanent position and left, I was offered the position through a temp agency. Here is what the worker can expect from a temp agency... no benefits (though some do offer them), no vacation (though I had paid time off, but it was discontinued recently), no holiday pay (was initially given 4 paid holidays a year, after I had been with the temp company for a year) that too was cancelled with the paid time off. I can pay into a 401K with some matching funding, but you can't expect that at all temp companies. I have no expectations of getting a raise, last I inquired the poor economy was given as an excuse not to give employees raises. Even though I work as a civil servant, hired to do the job of a civil servant, I enjoy none of the protections. I can be fired at will, I can't strike since the contractor I work for doesn't even have a work force that is focused in any one company. So lets say I don't like how I'm being treated at my position, well the people who are working for the contractor may also be at hospitals, warehouses, private offices, etc... so our grievances are not shared, and replacing employees at these shops is all to easy.

These temp contractors are making money off of their employees since they get a premium for providing workers. More and more companies are going with these contractors to provide their employees because it drives down their liability even more. Its a shame but since its a shadow of the American labor problems, no one pays attention to it, but they are helping to drive the race to the bottom of wages ever faster. I'm glad you had this guest on to discuss this issue Thom, and I do truly hope that you continue to delve into this subject, there's a lot that needs to be exposed in this industry.

N

You're absolutely right. It is a media echochamber. Fox and MSNBC do not represent the polar extremes of opinion, nor do they represent the only opinions. To pretend halfway between the center and the right-of Atilla-the-Hun is the "objective" view, and to think that any other facts from third parties (or fact-checking it at all) are not relevant, abrogates their authority and changes what they do from "journalist" to "propagandist" that would consider Kim Jong Un's "life story" a valid side. It is worse than silence.

I do kind of understand the source of the problem, though: as a reporter gets famous his/her salary goes up. The same with a news organization. As a side-effect of success these people move into a new tax bracket and then it is in their interest to vote for money-managers, hang out with the other Neauveau Riche, and it takes a special person (like The Hartmanns) to maintain objectivity and even be honest about policies that may harm thousands even if the policy benefits him and his new friends. Or the office falls into a need for high-end friends and loses interest in stories that irritates the new circle. It's not right, but it is understandable. It's as expected, but still nauseating, that a highly successful newspaper like the St. Pete Times, parent of Politifact, would be afraid to be labelled "liberal". It is a painful irony in light of the fact that their only competition, The Tampa Tribune, is seen as "conservative" (though both papers, at least the last time I saw the Trib, employ columnists from the center-left and center-right and otherwise have objective policies) and the Times is actually prospering while the Tribune is cutting back and raising prices...

I see this whole mess as part of a long term chess game or game theory exercize to crush the middle class. The current oligarch-wannabees, like Koch Industries, are still horrified about the THIRTIES. They view worker's "rebellion" as a horrid terrorist security breach. They view the failure of Herbert Bush (GHWBush) to get reelected in the same way they view the failure of the people to elect Barry Goldwater. Or the takedown of Joseph McCarthy. It is the misbehavior of unworthy and ungrateful children who do not understand what the one percent do for them. We are little better than housepets, or house-{insert N-word here}, who must be chastized and controlled for our own benefit. There is a wierd Neo-Calvinist twist to this, a philosophy that says that the rich are the elect because God placed their soul into a baby born to a rich (successful) family or aided them in succeeding (and the rest are poor because they are not elect and therefore don't matter/can't understand). This is also their thinking in the insane economic and ecological philosophies: when reality doesn't match their delusion it is the fault of the "corrupt, sinful world" and its residents. They expect a Rapture at any moment, so long term survival is moot.

This is, of course, delusional thinking of the most "dangerous to self and others" kind. Now we have the asylum run by the lunatics and their obsessive-compulsive greed, and their total lack of empathy. Every time I hear about "austerity" I think we must get these poor and suffering souls into hospitals and treat their illnesses before their behaviors finish rendering the earth inimical to our kind of life.

Thank you for making public note of this morning's NPR coverage of the payroll tax standoff;
I was deeply disturbed by the slant or the ignorance of the story, as reported. Thank you.
This deserves national attention. To make NO mention of the attachments to the bill that House
Republicons are pushing is incredibly unprofessional -- and dangerous for the country,
given the number of people that depend on NPR for accurate information.

Can anyone give me a link to the poison pills Thom was referencing at the begining of the first hour? The drug-testing, and other restrictions on unemployment benefits?

Um, cough, cough, That's not entirely accurate! While thorium mitigates some of the nuclear safety issues, thorium by itself (IIRC) cannot sustain a nuclear chain reaction. Fissionable U235 or U238 must be mixed with the thorium fuel in order to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. So now we are right back to where we started - what do we do with the waste???

A better solution is to accept there is no solution to our dilemma of the infinite economic growth paradigm on a finite world. We must discard our infatuation with suburbia requiring a personal auto, large houses, and an ever growing population in exchange for a living arrangement much like pre automobile era and a reduction in the planets population to about 1 billion. Otherwise the consequences of our actions will force this change upon us in ways, frankly, I'd or my children and grand children rather not have to endure!

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